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Journal of Crustacean Biology

Published by: The Crustacean Society

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Journal of Crustacean Biology 31(2):240-245. 2011
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1651/10-3356.1

Color Polymorphism of Sand Crabs, Lepidopa benedicti (Decapoda: Anomura: Albuneidae)

Unnam Nasir and Zen Faulkes

(UN, unnam_nasir@yahoo.com; ZF, correspondence, zfaulkes@utpa.edu) Department of Biology and Center for Subtropical Studies, The University of Texas-Pan American, 1201 W. University Drive, Edinburg, Texas 78539, U.S.A

Abstract

Sand crabs (Lepidopa benedicti) are highly specialized digging animals that spend the vast majority of their adult life submerged in fine sand. The carapace color of L. benedicti varies from gray to white. Given that the environment in which they live is uniform and dark, most of the functional scenarios to explain color variation seem unlikely to apply. Carapace color has a bimodal distribution, indicating that it is better characterized as a polymorphism than simply as normal variation. Gray crabs are larger and more common than white ones. Crabs mostly swim ventral-side up, which suggests that countershading does not explain the apparent advantage of having a gray carapace.

Received: June 23, 2010; Accepted: September 14, 2010

Keywords: beach habitat, carapace color, countershading, Lepidopa benedicti, polymorphism, swimming

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