Californian beach boasts world’s pickiest females

[HuckleB]

Californian beach boasts world’s pickiest females

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7789

"US scientists believe they may have found the pickiest females in the world. And size does matter – when it comes to the creature’s abode – a new study suggests.

Californian fiddler crab females often check out more than 100 males – even inspecting the hapless side-crawlers’ bachelor pads – before selecting their mate, according to Catherine deRivera, at the University of California in San Diego, US. “Most animals sample just a few mates, presumably because search costs override the benefits of lengthy searches,” she says.

During seduction, the male fiddler crab stands at the entrance of his waterfront burrow and with a “come hither” wave beckons the female over. Interested females eye up the males and if they like what they see, partially or fully enter their potential den of iniquity to size it up.

Once she has picked her male, the female crab enters his home, plugs the hole to his burrow. Once comfy, the crabs will mate and incubate their eggs, which later hatch to be flushed from the estuary by the tides.

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Den of iniquity?