Land Hermit Crabs
by Philippe de Vosjoli (2005 updated version)
After reading most of the hermit crab books currently
on the market, I have to say I just don't have high hopes for
them any more. There are few I can recommend at all, and even
most of those recomendations are guarded and come with caveats
and notes on why large chunks of the book are outdated or simply
wrong.
De Vosjoli's Land Hermit Crabs is one of
the few books that really exceeds my expectations as far as care
is concerned. He gives an excellent, accessible overview to sections
of the book like taxonomy and biology that tend, in most books,
to be either extremely glossed over or extremely terminology-heavy.
He presents his methods and opinions on hermit crab care, but
he's also good about noting when there are other methods, and
generally briefly notes why there is a difference.
I do disagree with de Vosjoli on a few minor points.
The biggest one is his opinion that painted shells are OK and
probably not harmful to crabs. I disagree with this very strongly.
While I won't refuse to buy a crab in a painted shell, I generally
take them out of the tank when no one is currently using them.
The paint on painted shells frequently chips and cracks, and when
it does it can not only be irritating to the hermit crab's exoskeleton,
but it can be injested by the crab. I don't know how you feel
about your pets eating paint chips, but that's not OK with me,
no matter which company says their paint is safe. Also at issue
are the inhumane methods companies are reputed to use to get hermit
crabs into painted and decorated shells - and frankly with certain
stores selling only hermit crabs in painted and decorated shells,
I have to believe at least some of the rumors. Hermit crabs just
don't ALL switch into painted shells ALL the time. In my experience,
the opposite is true: most hermit crabs prefer natural shells.
I also think that his method of simply sloping the
sand in your hermit crab tank and filling the shallow part with
water is kind of a crackpot idea. By its nature, sand wicks moisture
out. I think if you attempt to make a pool this way you'll end
up with a whole lot of mud and not really much of a pool. If you
want nice big pools that slope down like that, buy and decorate
some mini paint trays. They would work especially well if you
used aquarium silicon to glue down some fish net along the bottom
and inside edges so that there is always a grippable surface for
hermit crabs to use to climb out.
At the end of this book there is also a short section
on other freshwater crabs (fiddlers, red clawed crabs, true land
crabs, etc) which I am not in any way qualified to review.
|
