WCS 3-Sentence Science

This Hawk Likes Crab for Dinner

May 1, 2019

Photo credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present Steve Platt’s work on the predation by red-shouldered hawks on a crab species:

1. Red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) feed primarily on mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates, the majority of which are insects and crustaceans, with the latter represented to date only by crayfish.
2. In 2016, authors observed a red-shouldered hawk attack and dismember another crustacean, the ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), on a coastal beach in South Carolina, USA.
3. This is the first report of a red-shouldered hawk attacking and presumably consuming any species of crab and the first report of probable ghost crab predation by a raptor in North America.

Study and Journal: “Attack and probable predation on ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) by red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus)” from The Wilson Journal of Ornithology
WCS Co-Author(s): Steve Platt, WCS Myanmar Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.