HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Well, we survived the journey! Between myself, the dog, and the crabs... surprisingly, the crabs handled the journey better than the rest of us. The dog had a meltdown, got sick, and threw up all over my Jeep. I was in pain from six long days on the road. But the crabs? They seemed to handle it fine...

Hey, thank you!! I ended up moving the big girl to a holding tank while I was on my trip, just to discourage any molting. She did fine in there. I dug today to break down the tank. Found three crabs, all buried deep but not molting. One was done, with no sign of any leftover exo. Two were probably f...

So, I'm trying to work out the best way to handle my cross country move (California > Florida). Making all the arrangements for a move like this is stressful enough on its own, but nothing is more stressful to me than trying to figure out the best way to move the crabs. So, I have seven crabs (1 jus...

So, spotted an interesting article this week... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/hermit-crab-penises-evolved-to-protect-shells/ A fascinating article (the actual research paper is linked in the article as well... free to download as pdf), but.. I have questions. I have never observ...

Didn't catch them in the act, but there was what might have been guarding behavior that morning.

I dunno. I'm so stumped by what he's doing here. He seems fine, hasn't done it since and is behaving normally... but... ????

All of your crabs are adorable [emoji3] I also love the tank decorations - how big is your tank? Sorry for the late reply! It's a 65gal. My little slice of crab paradise. ;) And thank you all! I love my little colony of critters. They're such lovely, fun little crabs. :D I take most of my photos wi...

He's a beautiful crab, that's for sure! But I'm pretty sure they're not legal as pets. From what the zookeepers told me, Kenny was confiscated from someone trying to get him into the country (whether for food or for a pet, they didn't know) and then given into the care of the SD Zoo afterwards. I lo...

Thanks again, y'all! Sorry it took me so long to reply. Life's been busy.

My next trip is to Roatán, Honduras next month and I hope to come back with a ton of wild PP pictures this time!

Okay, what on earth is Drake doing here? https://youtu.be/5-YB4PECcA0 It almost looks like he's spitting something up, balling it up, and then wiping it off his mouthparts with his claws. He gets his little grooming legs involved a little, too. It's not bubbling, it's not foam. I've seen crabs foam ...

So, in digging for research papers on coconut crabs a while back, I stumbled across this interesting document and figured I'd share it here. http://titag.org/2016/2016papers/walkercoconutcrab.pdf Produced by the San Diego Zoo, it outlines all the details of how they care for Kenny, their coconut cra...

Thank you!

I happened to stumble across a shipment of Es at Petco at just the right time when I had space in the big tank. It's interesting to see how different they are from the PPs. I just wish I got to see them more often! They're SO shy!

It was! :D Fiji was beautiful! I cannot tell you how tempted I was to try and sneak a couple Ruggies home in my pockets. ;) They were such sweet-tempered little critters! If I ever go back, I'm equally tempted to bring a sack of nice shells for them. Tapestry turbans are native to the region (I saw ...

Thank you! :D I love my little critter crew. The PPs are all pretty easy to tell apart. Either by coloration & size or by personality. Personality-wise, they're all very distinctive. So it's fairly easy to tell them all apart just by their behavior. And except for the two tiny girls and Drake & Jule...

So, last October I spent a week on a dive trip in Fiji. My guest bure lawn was crawling with crabs! Mostly ruggies, but there were also some land crab burrows and plenty of ghost and shore crabs too. Took a ton of photos. Probably the only weirdo at the resort who was constantly staring at the groun...

Since I'm home sick, figured I'd post some photos of my crew. https://68.media.tumblr.com/5f20e259a2632f96806e9c5ae2d9685f/tumblr_p2d1o0u6qG1ucwgwpo1_1280.jpg Drake, my very suave male. Only male in the tank, lucky boy. He's the boldest of the crabs and will take food from my fingers. He's a very hu...