Land Hermit Crabs
by Paul J. Nash
I actually don't have a lot, positive or negative,
to say about this little booklet. Nash did an adequate job describing
hermit crab biology and taxonomy, though going into any detail
at all is, of course, not possible in a 32 page booklet.
Since it was published in 2001, it is not overly
outdated, though there have been some changes in commonly accepted
care practices and the pet trade in general in the past few years,
so there are some outdated passages
As one example, Nash does not include the fact that
all land hermit crab species require salt water as well as fresh
water in order to thrive. He also advocates using very shallow
water dishes and bathing crabs, rather than noting what's quickly
becoming the norm - leaving water dishes deep enough for hermit
crabs to bathe themselves in. Instead, he notes that deeper dishes
can cause drownings, but they are not dangerous if there are items
in and around the water dish for the hermit crabs to pull themselves
up on so they can easily get out of the water.
Possibly the most dangerous piece of advice in this
book is the overcrowded conditions Nash advocates - at one point
he says that between 10 and 20 hermit crabs can be housed in a
10-gallon aquarium, which is overcrowding beyond what I can actually
even imagine! I thought it was extremely overcrowded when we temporarily
housed our 5 hermit crabs in a 10-gallon tank while we were on
vacation!
Nash's advice on substrate is also not all it's
cracked up to be - he suggests gravel, which crabs can't climb
on, as well as potting soil, which often contains insecticides
that are unhealthy for hermit crabs.
Overall, I think the best part of this book is the
pictures. Very nearly every page has at least one color picture
of a hermit crab, some of which are very beautiful.
It's certainly not the worst hermit crab book around,
but it has a way to go before it's something I can highly recommend
either.
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