#hermit crab

[littlestpersimmon]

This Too Shall Pass

[myhappycrabitat]

Take the memory, leave the shell! Watch what happens when we return seashells to the beach & marine hermit crabs!

Seashells are so important to beaches for a whole host of reasons.

🐚Over-shelling can affect hermit crabs because it reduces the availability of suitable shells for them to inhabit. Hermit crabs rely on empty shells of other creatures for protection and shelter. When there are too few shells available, hermit crabs may be forced to inhabit inadequate shells & pollution as homes, which can hinder their growth and make them more vulnerable to predators and environmental stressors. This can ultimately impact their survival and reproductive success.

🐚Shells provide homes or attachment surfaces for algae, sea grass, sponges, coral and a host of other microorganisms.

🐚Animals such as decorator crabs and octopus use shells as camouflage and many fish use shells as hiding places to avoid predators.

🐚Shells help to stabilize beaches and anchor seagrass.

🐚Shells are used by shorebirds to build nests.

🐚When shells break down, they provide nutrients for the organisms living in the sand or for those that build their own shells. (Shells are a major source of calcium.) I’m a firm believer in when we know better, we do better. I once shelled, and then when I learned all of this, I returned all shells that were not sprayed with a clear varnish to the beach & watched the marine hermit crabs go wild changing shells that were so needed!

[pikaole]

[raptorredd]

lets scuttle with mama

[exhaled-spirals]

« Whenever a land hermit crab is lucky enough to come across an empty shell (sometimes because a behavioural ecologist put it there) and if no one else is around, it will stop, take a closer look and probably try on the new shell for size. If it likes what it finds it will keep the new home and continue on its way. However, if the shell is too big the crab won’t pass on by, but will sit quietly next to it, sometimes for as long as 24 hours. In that time other crabs will probably amble past and wonder what’s going on. Then a spontaneous hermit party breaks out. Don’t get too excited, though, because the main thing that happens when hermit crabs get together is they start forming queues.

A gaggle of hermit crabs clustered around a big empty shell will sort themselves out into a size-ordered line with the biggest at one end, leading to the smallest at the other. This orderly formation is called a vacancy chain, and people form them too, of jobs and houses. The crabs work out who goes where by clambering around and feeling up each other’s shells. Sometimes, if there are lots of hermits in the area, several queues will form around a single, large vacant shell and then things get a bit more interesting: a tug-of- war ensues. The biggest crabs will wrestle over the coveted empty shell while the little ones further down the line will shift queues like supermarket shoppers speculating on which checkout will move fastest.

Eventually, one queue will win control of the empty shell and, in a flurry of claws, everybody in the successful line moves house. Each crab slips out of its old shell and into the newly abandoned shell of the crab one place ahead of it in the queue. They all get a new shell, one size bigger, and quickly scuttle off, once again going their separate ways. Behavioural ecologists have worked out that forming vacancy chains provides benefits for all the crabs involved; adding just one new shell can efficiently provide new homes, of just the right sizes, for a whole gang of hermits. »

— Helen Scales, Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells

[lazer-t]

Blueberry Hermit Crab for a Ko-fi supporter (more info)

Prints

[poodlepincushion]

Summer time approaches how will you enjoy the sun this year???

Artistic freedom animal puppet! HERMIT CRAB