Rapid colour changes associated with the fiddler crab, Uca capricornis

Created 25/06/2017

Updated 11/08/2023

The purpose of this experiment was to quantitatively examine the rapid colour changes associated with the fiddler crab, Uca capricornis. Experiments were conducted in the East Point Reserve, Darwin from Nov - Jan (04/05 and 05/06).

65 randomly selected crabs were caught (21 males and 44 females) and their ability to change colour over a 20 minute period was assessed using a portable spectrophotometer.

The results indicate that when caught, or otherwise stressed, U. capricornis are capable of rapidly changing their colour, with short term colour changes more likely in females. In all cases the pattern remained unchanged, but did become more difficult to distinguish as the colours darkened.

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Field Value
Title Rapid colour changes associated with the fiddler crab, Uca capricornis
Language English
Licence Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/fa302e79-5e88-47d1-bb40-b49e61d37813
Contact Point
Australian National University
Tanya.Detto@hotmail.com
Reference Period 25/06/2017
Geospatial Coverage
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Data Portal Data.gov.au