MORFOMETRIA, PROPORCION SEXUAL Y SELECTIVIDAD A CONCHILLAS DE GASTEROPODOS DE TRES ESPECIES SIMPATRICAS DE CANGREJOS ERMITA？OS PAGURUS (DECAPODA. ANOMURA, PAGURIDAE) EN LA BAHIA DE ANCON, LIMA, PERU

the studied pagurus hermit crabs (decapoda: anomura: paguridae) are macroinvertebrates from the marine rocky shore from the central coast of peru. every fifteen days between august to october 2000 (winter and spring), the morphometric parameters, sexual proportion and selection of gastropod shells of pagurus villosus (nicolet, 1849), p. edwardsi (dana, 1852) and p. perlatus (h. milne edwards 1848) collected at san francisco (sfb) and los enanos (leb) beach, bay of ancon (11° 44,5' ls, 77°6' lw), lima, peru, were evaluated. only p. perlatus from ple separated from a sex ratio 1:1, representing the females a 74.46 %. the values of five morphometric parameters in mm: cephalothoracic length (cl), right forceps length (rfl), left forceps length (lfl), maximum right forceps width (mrfw) and cephalothoracic width (cw) were higher in males than in females of p. villosus and p. edwardsi. the exception was p. perlatus which presented an opposite pattern in leb. the three species of pagurus presented an observed preference to shells of the following gastropods: nassarius dentifer (powys, 1835), n. gayi (kiener 1835), nodilittorina peruviana (lamarck 1822), stramonita haemastoma (linnaeus 1767), tegula atra (lesson 1830), t. euryomphala (jones 1844) and xantochorus buxea (broderip 1833)