Sexual weapons sometimes protect rather than burden their bearers from predators

Evidence

20. T. Koga et al., “Male-Biased Predation of a Fiddler Crab,” 201–7. Predation isn’t always male biased, however. For example, another study found that ibis preferred female fiddlers over males, perhaps because big claws made males harder to swallow. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 774

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does the claw’s protective function generalize beyond ibis predation, and does it flip the cost-benefit of weapons?
• XREF: connects to: Weapon costliness keeps signals honest by excluding weaker males; Male combat for mating access frequently causes serious wounds and sometimes death; Weapons work primarily as deterrents that prevent fights rather than win them — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 966 (+2 more)

Related

• Protection and exploitation fuse so thoroughly that victims cannot distinguish them. (similarity 0.89)
• Predation risk is a near-universal cost of elaborate weapons (similarity 0.85)
• Weapons work primarily as deterrents that prevent fights rather than win them (similarity 0.85)
• In nearly all weaponed species, males carry the weapons, not females. (similarity 0.83)
• Sexual selection drives weapons to extremes because payoffs for winners are enormous. (similarity 0.82)
• Weapon costliness keeps signals honest by excluding weaker males (similarity 0.81)
• Sexual selection can be far stronger than natural selection and drives weapon extremes (similarity 0.81)
• Weapon size is favored when males defend resources females need (similarity 0.81)
• Weapon size honestly signals fighting ability because growth tracks health and nutrition (similarity 0.81)
• Big weapons only benefit males with the reserves to wield them effectively (similarity 0.81)
• Reproductive success, not survival, drives the largest animal weapons (similarity 0.81)
• Fiddler crabs use their oversized claws far more as signals than as weapons (similarity 0.81)
• Males evolve big weapons to defend resources that females visit (similarity 0.81)
• Costly claw muscle raises male fiddler crab resting metabolism nearly twenty percent (similarity 0.80)
• Extreme skew in mating success drives arms-race escalation in weaponry (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Weapons work primarily as deterrents that prevent fights rather than win them #corroborates (0.50) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 966
• Weapons in arms races get so big they impair other bodily functions #complicates (0.45)