Spying 2

Aw, Coco totally biffed it. LOL Poor crab. She's alright!

Spying

Today, I'm home from work early waiting for my ride back to Montana to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. I feel like I'm spying on what the crabs get up to during the day when we're not home. It's the first time I've ever seen any of them get up on the thermometer/hygrometer!

Coconut, one of our strawberry hermit crabs, crawled up onto the half log, then reached up to grab the thermometer. Now she's sitting on it! I'm kind of afraid she's going to tear it down because it's looking like it's coming up from the wall... but I don't want to distrub her and make her fall down either.

Hopefully neither of them is damaged in this latest escape attempt. ;)

George!

Mike just got a picture of George! :)



It's the first time I've seen him really alert looking outside the cave he sat in for two or three days after we brought him home.

Now he's gone to hide under the driftwood - this one might just make it!

Introductions

My name is Amy, and I keep land hermit crabs.

:) I'm starting this blog so that I have a good place to share the antics of our hermit crabs, and a blog seemed like it would be much easier to update and maintain than just making myself a section of my web site (www.crabzilla.net) to share them in.

Mike (my husband) and I have had hermit crabs together since the spring of 2005 - so not too long, though we've spent a lot of that time researching land hermit crabs and trying to find the best ways to take care of them. I also had a few hermit crabs in college before I met Mike, but unfortunately I didn't know very much about how to take care of them then.

Let me introduce everyone (all pictures linked from my husband's hermit crab gallery - all pictures are copyright 2005 and should not be used without his permission). We have 12 hermit crabs - 4 purple pinchers, 4 ruggies, 2 equadorians, and 2 strawberries.



Sonic is our "oldest" hermit crab by date of purchase. He's one of the first two hermit crabs we bought together, though Knuckles, his partner in crime didn't make it. He's very shy of people, so it's hard to get a really good picture of him. He's actually gotten lighter since we bought him - which worries me - but our other crabs have gotten darker, and I guess I can't make him eat his vegetables (or the other foods that are good for crabby color). Sonic is Coenobita clypeatus, or a "purple pincher" hermit crab.



The next crabs we bought were Peggy and Sean, "The Ruggie Twins". Although Peggy has now changed shell, they originally came in matching shells and we couldn't tell one from the other. They are Coenobita rugosus, aka "ruggies" or "tawny hermit crabs".



The order of the next several we bought are jumbled in my mind, but there was The General, a large purple pincher who was so named due the confederate flag painted on the top of the shell we bought him in (much like the car in Dukes of Hazard) as well as Presto (also a purple pincher), who is so named because he changed shells constantly for awhile (though he's been in this one for months). Presto Chango! Every morning it was like waking up to a new crab.



Alvin and Simon, are our little equadorian crabs - originally, we'd bought three but unfortunately Theodore only lived a few days. They are better known as "little white guy" and "little brown guy", though I'm sure that will change if they ever decide to switch to a shell of another color. The E's are a lot of fun, and are very active.

Next, we bought two more ruggies (neither of whom we have pictures of). Feegle (named for the Nac Mac Feegles of Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men) got his name because the first thing he did when he was put in our main tank is try to steal a shell from one of the ruggie twins, and was otherwise agressive (he's mostly calmed down now that he's got a new shell). And Flash, who instantly upon being put in our main tank changed into a different shell and disappeared underground - he didn't even bother checking out the shell - he just jumped straight into it, as if the shell he came in was simply so unacceptable he would have nothing further to do with it.



Coconut and Lacky are Coenobita perlatus, or "strawberry" hermit crabs. We were worried about getting them, because strawberries are the most delicate of all the land hermit crab species, and are supposed to be fairly difficult to keep, but so far we have had good luck. Cross your fingers!

Most recently, we rescued a jumbo purple pincher named George from the store where we bought our little equadorians - they only had a ten gallon tank, as they usually get in quite small crabs, but they somehow managed to get ahold of a jumbo. After seeing him there for a good month, we decided we needed to rescue him and bring him home. I'm not sure he'll pull through, but there's hope since he's eating and drinking when we put food and water near him, and he's started flinching when we get too near him - originally we wondered if he was blind because he didn't react to us at all.

So that's the hermit crab crew - hopefully now that I've made a place where I can share the little things they do, I'll remember to update it once in awhile!