Fiddler Crabs Direct Beach Traffic

2018

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Male fiddler crabs each grow one enormous, basically useless claw and each then revels his whole life in wildly waving it around on the beach. Why? The same reason guys everywhere do crazy stuff: they’re convinced that their ladies dig it.

 

Picky female crabs do, in fact, select mates from those males who have achieved single huge claws and who have mastered displays of endlessly and energetically waving them in the air. It all seems to work for them; little fiddler crabs appear on the beach regularly.

 

The males are stuck in their behaviors, though, with their singular focus. This sculpture suggests an alternative natural occupation for these guys: Beach Traffic Directors. Two circular rotors suggest that energetic claw waving could be re-purposed to useful traffic direction. “Hey, you turtles, go that way to the water!”

Taken in isolation, each claw rotor would swing with a fixed period. However, the two rotors rotate on a third rotor arm that alters the rotational character of the pair to more complex, crabby behavior: “Hey, you gulls, wait for the turtles to cross the beach!”

 

For fiddler crabs, like us, having options can open new opportunities. No longer trapped with a singular purpose, perhaps one evening we’ll hear one say “Not tonight, Honey, I’m on duty!”