Abstract

Migratory animals endure high stress during long-distance travel in order to benefit from spatio-temporally fluctuating resources, including food and shelter or from colonization of unoccupied habitats. Along with some fishes and shrimps, nerite snails in tropical to temperate freshwater systems are examples of amphidromous animals that migrate upstream for growth and reproduction after a marine larval phase. Here I report, to my knowledge, the first example of 'hitchhiking' behaviour in the obligatory migration of animals: the nerite snail Neritina asperulata appears to travel several kilometres as minute juveniles by firmly attaching to the shells of congeneric, subadult snails in streams of Melanesian Islands, presumably to increase the success rate of migration.

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call