Uca

The fiddler crab or calling crab is any of the hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae. These crabs are well known for their extreme sexual dimorphism, where the male crabs have a major claw significantly larger than their minor claw, whilst females' claws are both the same size. The name fiddler crab comes from the appearance of their small and large claw together, looking similar to a fiddle.

Uca

NOAA · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
fiddler crabPBDB
Sits inside
UcinaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Ocypodoidea
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Ocypodoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 23 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 23 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 5 of 23 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 5 of 23 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences4.7–3.9 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences3.9–3.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.4–1.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.6–785 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence785 ka–0 Mya — about 15 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

23 occurrences of Uca on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

23 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Pirabas — 0.82°S, 46.96°WFernando — 34.05°N, 118.25°WCape May — 39.02°N, 74.79°WFalmouth — 18.48°N, 77.45°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Uca has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

56 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Uca, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

9 references

Each of the 23 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Uca

Credit
NOAA
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No repository was searched for a 3D scan: the genus name is too short to search on without matching most of the record.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itUcinae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1814