Scientists find fiddler crabs will exchange favours for sex

news ^ | November 05, 2009 | Brian Williams

[JoeProBono]

SCIENTISTS have found that - just like some people - fiddler crabs will exchange favours for sex. Male crabs will protect a female neighbour but do so partly in exchange for sex. Australian National University researchers Richard Milner, Michael Jennions and Patricia Blackwell in a study published in Biology Letters looked at how female crabs - those without the large claw - go about protecting their territories, The Courier-Mail reports.

They found sexual offerings lead to neighbourhood coalitions, where a male crab protected females from homeless males seeking territory. The males' giant claw is the largest weapon relative to body size in the animal kingdom. Females have two small feeding claws.

Prof Jennions said stroppy males had evolved with one huge claw which was used for luring females and fighting.

[JoeProBono]

[Slings and Arrows]

I wonder just how they discovered this?

Those bio labs can get lonely at night...

[aruanan]

Horseshoe crab. And, man, that tail really hurts if you stub your toe on it while running down the beach!

[b4its2late]

I suspect some human males would protect a whole street if they had the chance......

[IronKros]

Because they found an animal in nature that does this, this means prostitution must be a “natural” act for humans.

Well, I guess it really is the oldest profession.

[a fool in paradise]

So when people get crabs from sex, there is still a courting dance?

Did they roll this into the study into the sex lives of freshman college females?

[a fool in paradise]

[from occupied ga]

So when people get crabs from sex, there is still a courting dance?

Someone has probably already asked this, but do crabs get people from sex?

[wildbill]

Took me almost 70 years to figure out I am a fiddler crab.

[Knitebane]

Wonder what kind of organ they use?

I imagine that it hurts at first.

[JoeProBono]

[CrazyIvan]

You know what the female crabs say, “You can tell from the size of their claw.”

[Daffynition]

[Vendome]

;-)

[SunkenCiv]

This struggle was captured by von Stuck with his famous painting “Two Male Crabs Fighting Over a Female Crab”.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2378621/posts

[longhorn too]

Wonder if they roll over and go to sleep afterwards!!!

[JoeProBono]