We investigated the growth patterns and morphological changes in the chelae of the heterochelate hermit crab Pagurus bernhardus using µCT and SPHARM analysis, correlating our findings with three different types of shells offered for protection. In males, the right chela exhibited positive allometric growth compared to the left, leading to significant size differences, whereas females showed isometric growth. This sexually dimo...

One of the advantages of mesh-based geometric morphometrics (GM) over landmark-based approaches, is that it affords the possibility of the precise examination of highly irregular shapes and complex topographic surfaces. In the case of spherical-harmonic-based GM, the main prerequisite is a completely closed mesh surface, which is often lacking, particularly when dealing with natural objects. Here we present a methodology to pr...