The ‘Chad’ Crab

In most of the animal kingdom, the boldest animals have the most success in reproducing.

Researchers from Plymouth University thought that the same would be the case for hermit crabs, but they were wrong.

In fact of the crabs studied (Pagurus bernhardus), it was the shyest males that stored the most sperm.

When a hermit crab feels threatened, it retreats into its shell in what scientists call a ‘startle response’.

To test their hypotheses, researchers took their test crabs and ‘startled’ them by picking them up and inverting them. Then they counted how long the crabs took before re-emerging.

At the end of the experiment, the crabs were dissected and their spermatophores were measured.

They found that the crabs that took the longest to re-emerge had the largest storage of sperm.

They write, that “until their spermatophores are provided to females, the pay-off from their investment [in sperm] has not been secured,”

So long as these shy males do eventually find a mate, their chances might be better than their more brazen counterpart crabs.