Red-Jointed Fiddler Crab
Uca minax
Physical description 3
Male red-jointed fiddler crabs have one large claw and one relativly small claw. The female fiddler crab has two normal sized claws. They both are chestnut brown with a gray color in the front. The claws of this crab has red joints. They have eight walking legs that are either olive or grayish brown in color. Near the center of the shell, called the carapace, there is a H-shaped depression. Behind the eye there are horizontal depressions (Zhong, date unknown). The eyes Uca minax have are compound. This means they are attached by eye stalks. The male can either be right or left clawed, meaning the large claw can appear on the right or left side of the crab. (Chesapeake Bay Program 1999).
Habitat 4
Uca minax live on muddy or sandy beaches that are uncovered at low tide. Each crab will dig its own burrow in the sand. The burrow will be 2-5 cm in diameter and have various depths. The maximum depth of the burrow is two feet. The entrance to the burrow can be plugged up with mud if the crab feels threatened (Zhong, date unknown). These crabs prefer areas of low salinity and can survive in freshwater for only three weeks (Mienkoth 1995).
Aquatic Biomes: coastal
Reproduction 5
The breeding period of Uca minax is every two weeks in the summer. During this time the male may have two burrows. One they live in and one that is for mating. The male will dig a small round burrow, this will be used for mating. When the females begin to return from eating the males stand at the edge of thier mating burrows. They wave their large claws in the air to attract a mate. If a female is attracted to the way the male is waving his claw she will stop in front of the burrow. When the male sees this he will wave the claw more vigorously. After this the male will run from his burrow to the female and back again. This is to show her the location of the burrow. If she approves of the burrow she will go to the edge of it and wait. The male runs into his burrow and drums both claws against the side and the female will feel the vibrations and enter. The male then leads the female to the back of the burrow and the returns to the entrance to plug it up with mud. Locked in the burrow mating occurs and two weeks later the female returns to the surface and releases her eggs into the ocean to develop (Zhong, date unknown).
Link to Access Genomic Data 6
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=txid504420[Organism:noexp]
Sources and Credits
- (c) matbio, all rights reserved
- (c) James Shelton, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), uploaded by James Shelton
- Adapted by matbio from a work by (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/18678184
- Adapted by matbio from a work by (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/18678183
- Adapted by matbio from a work by (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/18678185
- (c) Emily Rose Sharkey, all rights reserved
