Classification

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Class	Crustacea
Sub-class	Malocostraca
Order	Decapoda
Infraorder	Brachyura
Superfamily	Ocypodoidea
Family	Ocypodidae
Subfamily	Ocypodinae	Uca stylifera
Genus	Uca	(Photo by M.S. Rosenberg)

Fiddler crabs are small, semi-terrestrial crabs of the genus Uca that are characterized by extreme cheliped asymmetry in males. They are most closely related to the Ocypode (ghost crabs). There are currently 97 recognized species/subspecies.

The common English name “Fiddler Crab” comes from the feeding of the males, where the movement of the small claw from the ground to its mouth resembles the motion of a someone moving a bow across a fiddle (the large claw). (It's more obvious when seen from straight on.) From a Taiwanese website.

What's New / Site Updates

Note:The fiddler crab forum has been shut down due to lack of general interest, except by spammers.

Information

• Systematics
• Species, Subspecies, and Synonymy
• Phylogeny
• Morphology
• Life Cycle
• Geographic Ranges
• Common names of fiddler crabs
• Comprehensive fiddler crab reference list (2,486 references / Updated May 17, 2007):
  HTML or Zipped Endnote File (Version X for Windows)

Multimedia

• Photographs
  • Pictures of specific species are available from the species list.
  • Pictures of unindentified species found on the net
• Video
  • Videos of specific species are available from the species list.
  • Complete video list

Miscellaneous

• Fiddler Crab Links
• Fiddler Crab Art
• Michael S. Rosenberg's Website

Major References

The most complete and thorough reference to fiddler crabs is

• Crane, J. 1975. Fiddler Crabs of the World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

In addition, much of the information from these webpages comes from:

• Rosenberg, M. S. 2001. The systematics and taxonomy of fiddler crabs: A phylogeny of the genus Uca. Journal of Crustacean Biology 21(3):839-869.
• Rosenberg, M. S. 2000. The Comparative Claw Morphology, Phylogeny, and Behavior of Fiddler Crabs (Genus Uca). Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY.

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