Rejected!

Sometimes she's just not in the mood ...

Attempted mate guarding

When crabs mate, the male (in this case, the little guy on the bottom) grabs his chosen female and holds on until she is ready. But they have to arrange themselves abdominal plate to abdominal plate, and Big Mama here is not cooperating.

The struggle. She is trying to break his hold; he's trying to move around to her belly.

9 minutes of wrestling later, she's got her feet back on the ground, and shrugs him off. Bye, chico!

I was too late with the camera to capture a successful mating a couple of weeks ago. Both my male green shore crabs are tiny; both females are twice their size, but it doesn't seem to matter, as long as the male is mature.

I checked this morning. Both females are in berry. That explains her reluctance this time; he misjudged his cues.

Hermit shenanigans

It was time to put the aquarium to bed for the night: feed the anemones, add ice, turn off the light. But in the middle of the tank, behind the anemones, a lump of waving legs and antennae turned out to be two hermit crabs, embracing face to face, half out of their shells. I ran for the camera.

I had a few seconds only; hermits don't stay in vulnerable positions for long.

Two hairy hermits (Pagurus hirsutiusculus), mating. The smaller, green legs belong to the female; the male is bigger, and has red algae growing on his hairs.

It's springtime, and love is in the air. And the water. But it's difficult for hermit crabs; to mate, they have to crawl at least partway out of their shells, exposing their soft, juicy abdomens. And crabs are always on the lookout for fresh meat. A researcher timed his hermits; copulation lasted from 10 to 36 seconds, repeated up to 4 times.

I managed to get half a dozen blurry, bubbly photos. No time to wipe down the glass first, nor to turn off the pump.

View from the top. Bubbles and swimming copepods deleted, contrast increased. The female is the one on the right; her abdomen is visible, almost entirely out of the shell.

Either she had just molted (crabs have to wait until the female molts, because of the hard carapace she's wearing normally), or she molted soon afterwards; I found her molted bits and pieces up against the glass in the morning.

I paused to wipe off the glass quickly. When I looked again, a few seconds later, both hermits were back in their shells and walking away, in different directions.

If the mating was successful, the female will be visibly in berry soon; the baby hermits will hatch in about 3 weeks. They'll be too small to see, except as moving specks in a filter, against a bright light.

I have watched the preliminary courting behaviour many times. (I reported on it here: "A friend for Boy Blue", and "Little Bo-Peep is fast asleep.") I had never managed to catch them actually in the act.

Made my day. Theirs, too, I think.

Hide and go seek

I spotted him on the wall first. Then on a dresser. Then on my desk. Then on a different wall, in another room. Searching, searching.

Running crab spider, Philodromus dispar, male, and ready to mate.

He's looking for his girlfriend. He knows she's here somewhere, sitting quietly, waiting. But where?

Waving his "boxing glove" pedipalps.

I saw the female yesterday; she's small and pale, and rather shy. But he'll find her, I think. He was at least on the right wall the last time I saw him.

Life of the party

The bird blind on Mitlenatch Island looks down over a rocky cliff painted white with gull guano. There's a plank bench big enough for 4 people, and a plank (the same one?) removed from the wall, leaving a gap to peer through. The gulls don't seem to notice us, only a few feet away, and go about their important business unperturbed.

One of the gulls on the nearest rock was showing off, repeatedly opening his mouth wide as if to screech, but soundlessly, unless his call was beyond human ears' reach. The others didn't seem too impressed.

Our guide explained that this is courtship behaviour. I Googled it and found no more info, so I'll have to translate the proceedings as best I can.

"Check out my tonsils!"

"Good one, eh?"

"He actually thinks he's funny," says gull 2.

"Hee, hee, hee! Chortle!"

Face palms, gull style. At least the clown is happy. And silent.

Far below us, in the water, seals were swimming, birds were diving. We left the blind and went on down the trail.


(3rd in a series of 9 Mitlenatch Island posts. #1, #2, #3, #4. #5. #6, #7, #8)

Amorous mallards, as promised

... or ducky pr*n.

The mallards are pairing up. We shouldn't have been surprised, but we were; we assumed that they would wait until the spring, but when I looked it up, I found that mates are chosen in the fall, and courtship continues all winter.

We watched several couples engaging in the mating rituals this Friday on Reifel Island. It starts with the male preening and making odd sounds, grunting and whistling to attract her attention. Then he faces her, beak to beak, and starts to bob his head straight up and down. After a bit, she joins in, and they sit there in the water, looking like one of those string-operated antique toys. (I had to laugh, but they were oblivious, fortunately.)

When they tire of this game, the male starts pecking the female gently on the top of her head or the back of her neck ...

... until she lies flat in the water. Then he mounts her, holding on by the feathers on her head. Maybe he's being helpful, keeping her head above water; maybe he's just preventing her escape.

When it's all over, the male swims away, and his mate takes a bath.

These couples are more or less monogamous (he's not quite as faithful as she is), and will stay together all winter until she lays her eggs in the spring. Then he will abandon her to hide away and go through his spring molt. She will not molt until her duckings are ready to move out on their own.