behaviors of a shell searching crab

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:09 am

I woke up this morning and saw my crab mrs pincher ontop of a shell. She was pushing it around as if looking for the opening. She also sat ontop of it and "felt" it with her feelers. When she was pushing it around it seemed like she was weighing it and seing how big around the shell was. But in the end she turned away I put the shell in a different position so mrs pincher can easily see the opening and get it to try it out somethime later today I hope.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:19 am

She may have been checking it out as a possible try on, or she may have been just climbing on it. I've noticed that even my littlest crabs don't have any trouble at all moving around even the largest shells in my tank. They'll climb all over them, sit in front of them and turn them round and round in their claws, and drag and throw them all over the place. Sometimes they'll even bury a shell. I suspect that's reserved for shells that somehow offend their sensibilities, especially since there's one shell that no matter how often I dig it back up, if it's in the tank, it gets buried. Funny things, hermit crabs.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 10:29 am

One afternoon my PP Palm [I don't know the sex, so I call Palm "him"] was sizing up this new shell. I noticed that several times Palm was putting his large pincher in the opening as well as pushing it around/climbing on it. I was quite curious when I saw him doing this. When I came back a couple of hours later, he had changed shells.

Ren1216 · Post by **Ren1216** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:10 pm

My little PP, Pink, who just came up this week from molting... she changed shells 4 times the other day. Old one off, new one on, new one off, old on, old off, another new on.... you get the idea. Since she kept going back to the "old" shell, I wondered if she wanted to stay in it but something was wrong with it...?? So I grabbed it while she was trying another on, cleaned it out (she had been burried in it for 4 weeks), and I did notice some rough bumps down inside on the bottom. Maybe it was irritating her... I dont know. So I got something to file/scratch those bumps down then re-washed it.... gave it a dip in the 'ol salt pool... and put it back where she had left it. It wasnt an hour later and she was back in it... been in it ever since. So... maybe those rough spots really were the problem. Then again, maybe she was checking out her options.... who knows.