''Minuca minax'', commonly known as the red‐jointed fiddler crab or brackish-water fiddler crab, is a species of
fiddler crab
The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, while ...
that is found in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
from
to the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United S ...
. It is one of the most common macroinvertebrates in
salt marshes in these states. It prefers areas of lower salinity than other fiddler crabs,
and can be found in great numbers along the banks of tidal streams, even at distances greater than from the sea.
''Minuca minax'' was formerly in the genus ''
Uca
The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, whi ...
'', but in 2016 it was placed in the genus ''
Minuca'', a former subgenus of ''Uca''.
[
]
Description
Like other fiddler crabs, ''Minuca minax'' males have one claw
A claw is a curved, pointed appendage found at the end of a toe or finger in most amniotes (mammals, reptiles, birds). Some invertebrates such as beetles and spiders have somewhat similar fine, hooked structures at the end of the leg or tars ...
that is significantly larger than the other, while females have two equal-sized smaller claws. The joints on the claws are red, a noticeable feature that is the origin of the common name "red‐jointed fiddler crab".
Reproduction
''Minuca minax'' breed for two weeks in the summer in a small round burrow dug by the male. The larvae
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
T ...
are unable to survive in the lower-salinity brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...
water preferred by adults, and the adults do not travel to the sea to release the larvae. As such, the larvae use ebb tides to travel to higher-salinity environments to develop before returning as adults.
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q4477840
Ocypodoidea
Crustaceans of the Atlantic Ocean
Crustaceans described in 1855