Abstract
The courtship behaviour and cycles of male courtship activity and colouration of Ilyoplax orientalis, I. delsmani and I. gangetica were studied in the field in Malaysia and Thailand. Each species had a distinctive chela waving or beckoning display. Depending on species, the chelipeds, carapaces, or both of waving males blanched to white in contrast to the cryptic colour of nonwaving males and females. All three of these tropical Ilyoplax exhibited semilunar cycles in male waving activity at the colony level. It was confirmed for I. orientalis that individual males cycled each semilunar period between waving and non-waving phases and exhibited different behaviour toward females during these two behavioural phases.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kosuge, T., Poovachiranon, S., Murai, M. (1994). Male courtship cycles in three species of tropical Ilyoplax crabs (Decapoda, Brachyura, Ocypodidae). In: Sasekumar, A., Marshall, N., Macintosh, D.J. (eds) Ecology and Conservation of Southeast Asian Marine and Freshwater Environments including Wetlands. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 98. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0958-1_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0958-1_10
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