Swansea University study shows crabs navigating maze

Marine biologist Dr Ed Pope says crabs show a similar mental ability to insects

Crabs are able to navigate around a complex maze and even remember the route in order to find food, a Swansea University study has found.

Twelve common shore crabs were put in a maze which had three dead ends and required five changes of direction in order to reach food.

Researchers said over a four-week period, fewer wrong turns were taken and crabs steadily improved their time.

After two weeks away from the maze, all 12 completed it in under eight minutes.

Crabs that had never been in the maze before either took far longer or failed to reach the end during the one-hour study period.

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Marine biologist Dr Ed Pope, who led the study alongside master's student Ross Davies, said: "This study is important because we know that insects, especially ants and bees, have some impressive mental abilities but we haven't really looked for them in their aquatic counterparts.

"The fact that crabs show a similar ability to insects is, in some ways, not that surprising but it is great to be able to show it so clearly.

"This work opens the door to more sophisticated experiments looking at how changing ocean conditions might affect crabs' ability to learn and adapt to find food in future."

The findings of the study have published in scientific journal Biology Letters.