Camouflage in decorator crabs Integrating ecological , behavioural and evolutionary approaches (original) (raw)

2011

Abstract

Camouflage is one of the most common anti-predator strategies in the animal kingdom, and many examples of camouflage have become classic case studies of adaptation and natural selection (Cott 1940; Kettlewell 1955; Stevens and Merilaita, 2009). Although most examples of animal camouflage involve body coloration or patterning, decorator crabs in the brachyuran superfamily Majoidea (majoids) are a large and diverse group of crabs best known for a distinctive form of ‘decoration’ camouflage, in which they attach materials from the environment to specialised hooked setae on their body. This unique form of camouflage is dependent both on crab morphology and behaviour, and makes decorator crabs an ideal group in which to study the adaptive consequences and mechanistic bases of camouflage. Decorator crabs are also fairly unusual among camouflaged animals in that the adaptive anti-predatory consequences of decoration camouflage have in many cases been directly tested in the field (Stachowic...

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