Multiple feeding techniques in the sessile hermit crab, Discorsopagurus schmitti, inhabiting polychaete tubes.
In the sessile hermit crab Discorsopagurus schmitti, four different feeding techniques are described: antennary beating, body-trap feeding, feeding on wafting particles, and scraping. This species' potential for being a generalist in its diet and opportunistic in its foraging behavior certainly opened the way for a sedentary life, allowing occupation of the unusual microhabitat provided by attached polychaete tubes. Nonetheless, deposit-feeding and/or browsing are the most conspicuous foraging strategies, when both the percentage of behavioral acts performed and the quantity of potential food collected are estimated. The question still remains of whether species' reliance on benthos as the main food source should be regarded as an efficient strategy for a sedentary life, or simply as the heritage of its not-so-remote past as a mobile, and shell-dwelling hermit crab.
Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica "Leo Pardi", Universita' di Firenze, Via Romana 17, 50125, Firenze, Italy.
Francesca
F
Gherardi
Feeding techniques; Tube-dwelling hermit crabs