HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have Ben here, school and life has been busy, such as some personal breakups. School has also been a bit of a struggle to deal with, along with time management.

My question to ask for today, is on the title. My story behind this is that, earlier today, I was noticing that my only crab that is above the ground, schelbert, has been roaming around the habitat and hiding in a corner lot. When I saw him move around from his corner, I saw that there were some egg shells and 2 edamame beans where he sat! Is this normal for hermit crabs to relocate food?


Also, at the time that I am writing this, two of my hermit crabs are surfaced, and I heard some chirping noises for about one to two seconds, and when I checked on them they were standing next to each other. Is this an act of socialization or aggression? It has been such a long time since I've navigated the hermit crab forum, and I forgot some aspects for hermit crab Behavior.

Thanks everyone, and I hope you all have a great night or day, depending on your time schedule!

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the food thing sounds normal. mine will try to drag their food into their tunnels! I imagine in the wild they'd have to relocate food to keep it safe from competitors.

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They will bury food. I found food in an empty shell. I even saw one crab shove food inside his shell. I guess for a snack later on.

Interesting! I suppose those sound like evolutionarily stable strategies. It could also explain the missing edamame beans too! Thanks for your responses everyone! I hope they don't bury too much food otherwise it would spoil and smell, not to mention the growth of bacteria!

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Completely normal. Most of the food I offer is left behind in the dish I offer it in, or just gets pushed out from everyone digging around. But when I give them meat, I'll find it everywhere in their tank afterwards.

As for the chirping sound, most of what I've read about their "chirps" (since I've had the same worry in the past) point to aggression or distress.
Now personally, the only time I've heard it in my enclosure (and it's been a long time now, back when they were in the 20g), I'd found my two biggest crabs (one male, one female) staring at each other underneath a hide. They seemed to be feeling each other up with their antennas, so I sat and monitored them for a few minutes, but they remained in their places and nothing changed. There definitely didn't seem to be any aggression between the two of them.
But knowing what I did about it possibly being aggression or being in distress, I was confused, because these two are always together. If I lift something up and find one, the other one is usually right behind or nearby. It didn't make sense to me why they'd suddenly be having issues.

So I can't say for certain that chirping 100% means aggression or distress, although that seems to be the popular theory. Definitely in my case, that isn't what it seemed to have been, but to this day I still can't be completely certain.

Mine "chirp" well more like click at me if I wake them up it reminds me of a bunch of grumpy teenagers like really mom. And the first time I ever put popcorn in the tank they were so excited it sounded like I had a bunch of birds on there I swear