Parental care in the freshwater crab Sylviocarcinus pictus (Milne-Edwards, 1853)

Bruno S. Sant’Anna, Erico L. H. Takahashi, Gustavo Yomar Hattori

Federal University of Amazonas (Amazonas University), Institute of Exact Science and Technology (ICET), Itacoatiara, Brazil.

DOI: 10.4236/oje.2013.32019                

Abstract

Parental care is a common strategy in many animal groups, to increase survival of the off-spring. Here, we report parental care in the freshwater crab Sylviocarcinus pictus. A female caught in the Amazon River, Brazil, bore juvenile crabs rather than eggs on her abdomen. Kept in the laboratory, the female retained the juveniles on the abdomen for 17 days, after which the juveniles left the abdomen. A total of 341 juvenile crabs measuring 3.45 ± 0.12 mmwere recorded. This pattern of parental care is very important for the maintenance of local populations of S. pictus, because if the larvae were released, as occurs in many marine species, they would drift downstream.

Keywords

Freshwater Crab; Parental Care; Reproduction; Trichodactylidae

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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