Synchronised movements are prevalent in nature and often indicate cooperation, such as in fish schools and bird flocks. However, in Darwin's fiddler crabs, males synchronise their waving competitively to attract females, highlighting a unique case of competitive synchrony versus cooperative behaviour.

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A scorpion confronting two fiddler crabs on sandy ground.

Synchronised movements are extremely common in many animals.  Synchrony is a key element of human dance and music; and our heart muscle cells contract in synchrony to facilitate each heartbeat. Fish schools turn in synchrony. Many birds fly in synchronous twists and swirls. Synchronised movements are almost always a co-operative behaviour in which each individual benefits by being in synch with others. In the fiddler crabs of Darwin, however, males wave in synchrony when they are trying to attract a female for mating; and this behaviour is NOT co-operative. It is, in fact, competitive. Males compete with each other to wave before other males (because females have a strong preference for leading waves). This project looks at the differences between cooperative and competitive synchrony in many systems, including the fiddler crabs of Darwin harbour.