Scientists discover that ghost crabs are roaring in their belly

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Researchers from the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography have studied ghost crabs and discovered that they can produce a "grater sound" by "grinding gut teeth".

This is the first example of an animal using its stomach explicitly to communicate, according to the researchers.

Many crustaceans have teeth in the stomach that they use to grind food, but researchers have discovered that the phantom crab – ocypode quadrata – also used to make noise and communicate.

The ghost crab, also known as sand crab, is a species of coastal crab found on the west coast of the Atlantic, from the United States to Brazil. Sand-colored or whitish, the crustacean has claws of unequal size, hairy legs and its back can reach 3.75-5 cm long.

Crabs use many mechanisms to communicate, such as beating parts of the body against each other, bubbling liquids and making noises called stridulations by rubbing their claws.

The researchers say that it is the first example of an animal explicitly using its stomach to communicate.
By studying ghost crabs, the researchers found that when they were involved in agonistic interactions, crustaceans emitted aggressive scraping noises, even with their tense claws.

Biologists have worsened ghost crabs with canes, robotic toys and dead and alive crab bodies. Using vibration-sensing lasers and X-ray imaging, the researchers found that aggressive noises came from the crabs gastric mill.

"It's exciting, because it means these animals are able to stridulate with their claws and their guts," wrote Maya deVries, one of the authors of the report, in an email to CNN. "Because they also use their claws to show themselves and fight with other crabs, it means that they are able to continue to produce that important sound of stridulation, even when their claws are doing something else." This shows how important this sound is for their behavior.

"Ghost crabs are incredibly well studied, but their ability to produce sounds with guts has remained unknown until now.This structure is quite ubiquitous in crabs." We believe that it is quite possible that the communication with tripe is much more common than it is currently known. "

The research was published in the journal of the Royal Society.

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