Zoo Story
Fiddler Crab
This Is Hugo. Hugo is our male Fiddler Crab here at Zooland. Hugo got his name because he was the biggest one of all his brothers and sisters who hatched. We have had Hugo’s mother since we found her almost dead from a crab fight two years ago. We took her in, and Hugo was the first egg that hatched from her first setting of eggs. And we’ve had him ever since.
Once, when we brought our first female Fiddler crab in (who wasn’t one of Hugo’s sisters), Hugo started crawling around his habitat, and started “dancing” as we like to call it. It was very entertaining for the visitors to watch. Hugo will often try to pick a fight with some of his brothers, and will also try to break out of the glass of his aquarium (but he can’t do it).
When we go in to feed Hugo, we always have a little trouble at first because he thinks that we have come to hurt him. He will protect himself by raising his big claw at the zookeeper, and try to attack us so that we won’t touch him. But we always get him under control.
Male Fiddler Crabs will use their claws to fight with others, or to dig a burrow for him to live in. When a crab is in a fight, it might lose it’s big claw, but it will grow back over time.
