Individual recognition in stomatopods

Abstract

Many stomatopod species seem capable of individual recognition. This ability appears most often in species that face severe competition for shelter, or that create shelters that are costly to reproduce. Mantis shrimp identify specific individuals (conspecific or otherwise), and adapt their defensive or offensive strategies in response to previous encounters with that opponent. Stomatopods also use individual recognition in reproductive contexts: To recognize current mates and young, and to avoid previous mates. Current thinking is that individual recognition serves to limit lethal aggression, always a risk due to the legendary strikes of their powerful raptorial appendages. The most aggressive species, with the most complex behavioral repertoires, appear to be most capable in this arena. This chapter describes the well-developed visual and chemical senses and the learning that supports this survival strategy, and then focuses on the evidence supporting chemically-mediated individual recognition. This is followed by accounts of the roles played by visual and auditory cues in individual recognition.