Did You Know Ghost Crabs Have Teeth in Their Stomach?

Amaze Lab

Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers found Atlantic ghost crabs use teeth in their stomachs to growl during aggressive interactions. They say it’s the first evidence of an animal using stomach sounds to communicate.

Transcript

00:00New research has found Atlantic ghost crabs' stomachs growl, and it's not because they're

00:09hungry.

00:10Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers discover they use teeth in their stomachs

00:15to growl at enemies.

00:17It sounds crazy, but listen to this.

00:23Ghost crabs don't have teeth in their mouths, but they have some chompers in their gastric

00:27mill, or gut.

00:28They're usually used to munch on food, but researchers found they also use them to scare

00:33predators in hostile situations when their pincers are occupied.

00:37The crabs make aggressive sounds with their pincers, too, but the team noticed another

00:41sound while studying them.

00:43They couldn't see where it was coming from externally, so they looked internally with

00:47an x-ray and found the vibrations in the gastric mill.

00:52Researchers say it's the first evidence of an animal using stomach sounds to communicate.

00:56The findings were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences.

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