Can Hermit Crabs Hear? Quick Answer

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True story:

I had hermit crabs once when I was a kid.

I was endowed with all the knowledge of an elementary school student…and all the lack of mindfulness.

When I bought the crabs, they came with care instructions, including tips on how to keep them.

But somehow I failed to follow these instructions and ended up with a terrified hermit crab clinging to my then extremely uncomfortable hand flesh.

Allow me to give you some advice and save you from the same fate with your crabs.

How to Hold a Hermit Crab CORRECTLY so you don’t get trapped…

Don’t pick them up every day

First of all, hermit crabs don’t particularly like being handled.

They’re not the kind of pet you take out to cuddle. Sorry if you searched for this.

Like many other exotic pets, these crabs tend to become stressed if handled too often. And stressed pets turn into sick pets.

You can think of hermit crabs as tarantulas. In fact, they have a few things in common:

They are both arthropods;

They shed an outer layer for a new one (shell vs. exoskeleton);

They can both cause pain if you handle them.

The beauty of hermit crabs is that they are less likely to break the skin and lead to infection if you get pinched than a tarantula bite. It’s the little things we appreciate about our pets, right?

Make sure they are out of their shell

A hermit crab that is out of its shell is a comfortable crab. Once your crab gets used to you, it will likely come out of its shell more often.

“How to Deal with a Hermit Crab” by Animal Lover

But a crab in its shell is in no mood to be interacted with.

If your crab is resting, you can try lifting it by the shell and see if it wants to come out.

Start at the back

Pick up your crab by the back of its shell, where its legs and claws can’t reach you.

If you’re really scared of getting pinched, this is probably the place for you. Carefully set your crab back down where you need to relocate it.

If you want to bond with your pet crab, continue to the next step…

Make yourself hard to pinch

Only attempt to hold your crab in your palm when the animal is out of its shell, is active, and doesn’t appear stressed.

Placing a shelled crab on your hand can startle it, motivating the animal to reach out and look for something to pinch to protect itself.

(Trust me, that’s exactly how I ended up with a crab on my hand.)

Once the crab is out, keep your hand flat with your fingers together. This pulls your skin taut and reduces pinch areas.

“How to Deal with a Hermit Crab” by Animal Lover

Now let your crab walk around on your flat hands. You can even put your hands in front of each other to create a kind of crab treadmill.

Keep your hands near a table in case the crab falls.

Consider wearing gloves

If your crab is a pincher, or you’re really scared of imagining what pinching might feel like, you can put on thick gloves to protect the skin.

Do you have any more tips for dealing with hermit crabs? What are your tricks to prevent pinching? Share them with us on Facebook.

Body of the article

Feeding times have been noisy for the paddle crabs that crawl around the tank in biologist Ashley Flood’s lab. When the crustaceans eagerly hopped around a small pouch of squid meant to let them smell but never access the interior, they erupted in a chorus of rasps that seemed to come from deep in their stomachs. Flood and her colleagues from the University of Auckland in New Zealand recorded the cacophony with a hydrophone. Later, when they played the tapes to another group of paddlewheel crabs without eating, something remarkable happened – the crabs reacted much the same way, excitedly searching around their tank.

This grating sound is one of three distinct sounds that Flood and her team recently discovered. The results show the depth and diversity of communication in an invertebrate that until recently was thought to be largely silent.

Scientists have known since the 1960s that some crabs communicate through sounds, primarily by rubbing their claws on their legs — a technique known as stridulation. However, communication has only been demonstrated in a handful of semiterrestrial species. Flood’s study is the first to show that crustaceans that live beneath the waves can be just as talkative. “These sounds can play a crucial role in many life events, e.g. B. in the search for specific habitats, breeding success and the search for food sources,” says Flood.

Shovel crabs were perfect candidates for studying underwater communication, as they spend their breeding season in the opaque waters of New Zealand’s harbors and estuaries, where auditory communication would be more useful than visual cues.

To test how well the crabs produce sounds and to analyze associated behavior, Flood’s team placed paddle crabs in a tank of water with a video camera and hydrophone.

The team discovered that of the three distinct sounds made by the paddle crabs, two – the zipper and the bass – are only made by adult males in the vicinity of a sexually receptive female and in the presence of other males. Researchers believe these sounds are used to ward off sexual competitors. The accompanying behavior is another clue: the crab alternately rubs a walking leg against its claw and rocks its body. The overall display, says Flood, resembles a war dance.

The grating, meanwhile, was produced intermittently by all the crabs in each of Flood’s experiments, but increased in speed dramatically during feeding. The biologist theorizes that the crabs make this sound internally, probably by clenching their stomach teeth. This raises the possibility that several species of crustaceans, which we assume are mute, might also be capable of producing sound.

The pitch of the rasp also correlates with the size of the individual crab, which Sophie Mowles, a behavioral ecologist from ARU in England who was not involved with the research, finds particularly intriguing. As the crab grows in size, the frequency of the sound decreases, resulting in a lower pitch. “It’s very similar to what you would find in other animals,” she explains.

Mowles is also fascinated by the crab’s listening habits. The paddle crabs’ feverish response to the grating sound during Flood’s playback experiments suggests that the species tends to eavesdrop on other crabs, listening for clues that nearby individuals have found a new food source. “This can be harmful to someone who has found food, but sometimes it’s safer to feed in bulk,” says Mowles.

The study is also timely, says Mowles, as we are just beginning to get a handle on the impact of anthropogenic noise at sea. Understanding that man-made sounds can disrupt the subtle communication of animals might make us think twice about how our species fares in the oceans.

Things you need Hermit crab food

Leash of the Hermit Crab

How to teach a pet hermit crab tricks. Here’s another reason to invest in a pet hermit crab – they can do tricks! If you’re an attentive owner who can train patiently, your hermit crab can respond to the sound of its name, “talk” to you, and even walk on a leash! Read on to find out more.

Feed your crab carefully and gently with your hands. Offer your hermit crab small pieces of food and persuade it to approach you from a distance to build a bond of trust.

Speak softly to your crab while you feed it. Repeat his name. A soothing voice resonates with the hermit crabs, calming them down and helping to familiarize them with the sound of your voice.

Call your crab by its name. Over time, your crab will recognize your voice and come to you when it hears it.

Chirp at your hermit crab. Mimicking its natural vocal patterns encourages your hermit crab to respond. This allows you to have “conversations” with your hermit crab.

Research “leashes” for hermit crabs and train your hermit crab to walk on one of them. Hermit crabs can be fierce, inquisitive creatures that can easily stray from their owners if left to their own devices. By attaching a plastic chain to your hermit crab, you can make it easier to find it when it goes exploring.

Tips Hermit crabs are known for individual personalities. Don’t try to force your hermit crab into an action. Hermit crabs have preferences in their activities. The stress associated with forcing a hermit crab into an action can be detrimental to its health.

Warnings Do not attempt to bind your crab with metallic (and potentially poisonous) chains. Explore the hermit crab’s “leash”, learn about its limitations and the right way to use it.

Things you need heat lamp

thermometer

Large reptile tank

Various stones, coral and driftwood

spray bottle

water

Owning a hermit crab means less mess, less time and less expense than caring for other furry pets. They don’t make any noise and you can even decorate their bowl to match their personality. Overall, hermit crabs certainly make for interesting topics of conversation, but when your little pal is getting lethargic, it’s time to make him happy again. To get your pet hermit crab to be more active, you need to provide them with a clean, healthy environment in which to thrive.

Make sure you give your hermit crab enough space for its size. A general rule of thumb is to provide one gallon tank size for every two hermit crabs. So if you have six hermit crabs, they should live in a tank that is at least three gallons in size. This keeps your pets from becoming overcrowded and gives them plenty of space to explore on their own.

Provide many items in the tank for them to explore. Hermit crabs naturally enjoy foraging for food, so give them plenty of driftwood, coral, and rocks to simulate their natural environment. Not only will this keep your hermit crabs interested in their home, but it will also make for a more attractive environment in which to display your little friends.

Because hermit crabs begin hibernating below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, temperature control plays a big part in your hermit crab’s activity level. Provide them with a properly positioned heat lamp so they are not too cold and not too hot. The ideal temperature zone for a hermit crab is between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure you don’t put them in direct air conditioners or in direct sunlight to avoid overheating. Always keep a thermometer in the tank to ensure there are no temperature fluctuations.

Gently bathe or “spray” your hermit crabs with a spray bottle filled with clean water. You will enjoy the water and possibly become more active. Hermit crabs generally like warm, humid environments with a relative humidity of 70%, so give them the tropical environment to which they are accustomed.

Tips Hermit crabs like to change homes, so provide them with a variety of different sized shells to “try on” as they grow.

Warnings Failure to provide your hermit crabs with a constant temperature of between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit can put them into hibernation and even kill them.

A new study into whether or not decapod crustaceans and cephalopods are sentient has found that they do in fact have the ability to have feelings.

It’s pretty odd when you think about it, we routinely toss live lobsters into boiling pots of water. Yes, they’re delicious, and yes, their flesh is loaded with bacteria that multiply rapidly soon after they’re dead, but still. Cooking a lobster alive seems… cruel. Especially when they’re screaming, although that seems to be just air whistling through the hull. Anyway, it turns out we’ve been torturing these creatures seriously for a long time because the British government says they’re sentient.

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You’ll have feelings, which very likely include the feeling of being cooked alive, unceremoniously whipped, and covered in melted butter. Which would be a bad way. It’s not just lobsters that are thought to be sentient. Squid (no, it’s not squid), crab, shrimp, shrimp, crayfish, squid, and squid were also on the list. Which is a shame because these things are all delicious and now we should feel particularly bad about covering them in butter or batter (or hopefully both) and then scooping them into our mouths until our faces are covered in chunks of clam and meat are and our bellies are bursting at them.

The findings came after an independent review by the London School of Economics and Political Science. The review, commissioned by the UK government, led to the announcement that decapods and cephalopods will now fall under the Animal Welfare (Sensience) Bill, which already recognizes all creatures with a backbone as sentient. However, since decapod crustaceans and cephalopods have complex central nervous systems, they are very likely to experience emotions. Deciding which animals have what we call feelings is a very human thing, isn’t it? The review defines sentience as “the ability to have feelings, such as feelings of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, warmth, joy, comfort, and excitement.” Which means that not only can lobsters be blue, but they can also feel blue.

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“I’m pleased to see the government acting on a key recommendation of my team’s report,” said Jonathan Birch, a professor at the LSE who works on the Foundations of Animal Sentience Project, adding that they reviewed over 300 scientific studies . “Octopuses and other cephalopods have been protected in science for years, but have not yet received protection outside of science.”

The report made a handful of recommendations for how we should treat these creatures — though it didn’t say we shouldn’t eat them because, let’s face it, we’re a gluttonous species with little regard for the lives of other animals, and we eat them since we became one species. It states that crab claws, the sale of live crabs and lobsters to untrained, non-professional dog handlers, and cooking them alive should be banned.

But the UK government doesn’t exactly plan to do much with the recommendations of a report it commissioned, making it seem like a waste. Instead, they released a statement saying it “will not affect existing legislation or industry practices such as fisheries.” There will be no direct impact on shellfish fishing or gastronomy. Instead, it aims to ensure that animal welfare is taken into account in future decisions.”

ABOVE: Bock’s dwarf octopus (Octopus bocki) in the Robyn Crook experimental tank

As early as 2008, bees in Lars Chittka’s honey bee (Apis mellifera) laboratory at Queens University of London began behaving as if they were seeing ghosts. At the Chittka lab, bees are housed together in dark, artificial nests designed to mimic the conditions of the natural caves in which they typically build their hives. For behavioral experiments, the insects are usually taken one at a time down a long tube into small arenas, where they learn to perform complex tasks like counting objects and categorizing them.

In Chittka’s study, bees searched for food in a meadow of yellow and white artificial flowers—hand-sized squares on which they encountered a syringe filled with sucrose. There was a chance, however, that if they approached a flower, they would be momentarily caught by a soft, foam mechanical claw. This brief interaction mimicked capture by one of bees’ natural enemies: crab spiders (Misumena vatia). While the “catch” lasted only two seconds, a day later the bees learned not only to avoid flowers that harbored predators, but to approach all flowers more cautiously, signaling that they still had some memory of their temporary capture. “The bees were more nervous overall,” says Chittka. “It seemed to us that something emotional was going on, beyond aversive learning.”

A crab spider (Misumena vatia) camouflaged on a yellow flower awaits its prey. TOM INGS

Decades ago, scientists and lawmakers almost agreed that invertebrates cannot feel pain, let alone other emotions like joy or fear. Recently, however, evidence has been mounting that invertebrates are more than just reflective beings. Experiments with bees, crabs, and squid show that some invertebrates can learn from painful experiences, have positive and negative emotional states, and even experience a range of other emotions beyond pain and pleasure. But not all scientists agree that invertebrates feel something that matches the emotions of vertebrates — let alone humans.

Frans de Waal, a primatologist and animal behaviorist at Emory University, and Kristin Andrews, a philosopher at the University of York, make the case for invertebrate emotions in an article published in Science in March. The evidence that invertebrates can learn and experience things beyond simple reflexes, the duo argue, is now “overwhelming”. And if invertebrates do have emotions, they add, it can change the way we deal with them and make them part of our moral landscape. Still, many scientists remain extremely skeptical, and the question of whether invertebrates can feel emotions is hotly debated.

Challenging Dogma

Up until the 1980s, doctors still performed some surgeries on infants with little or no anesthesia. The practice persisted because the infants could not tell the doctors what they were feeling and because they believed they would not remember the pain. By and large, animal pain was dismissed for similar reasons.

By the early 20th century, behaviorism, which put less emphasis on inner experiences, was the dominant method of cognitive science, says de Waal. “As a result, the field of [animal emotion] is new. It’s certainly new to science, although every dog ​​owner you meet will talk about his or her dog’s emotions.”

Most emotion researchers now agree that human infants and other vertebrates, particularly primates, have emotions, but distinguish emotions from feelings. Feelings are internal states that are subjective and therefore not measurable if they agree. “The chief difficulty we face with all animals is that . . . We don’t have access to their feelings or thoughts through verbal reports,” says Chittka. Emotions are different.

“Emotions are states that prepare the organism for an action, usually an adaptive action, necessary for survival. Fear is the most obvious,” says de Waal. Emotion triggers a physiological response that can be measured—a change in blood pressure, respiration, body temperature, facial expression, or posture—that prepares an animal for a decision. Emotions are believed to have a cognitive component, as well as behavioral and physical components.

Primates like orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) show emotions on their faces. © iStock.com, Freder

Studying emotions in nonhuman primates is easiest because of their similarity to humans, says de Waal, who has long studied chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Primates display facial expressions similar to ours, knitting their brows in apparent frustration, showing their anger with their teeth, and smiling, perhaps to indicate something akin to happiness. Common laboratory mice (Mus musculus) also appear to change their facial expressions to express emotion, and their physiological and neurological responses to pain, fear, and social defeat are well documented.

In animals that are evolutionarily more distant from humans, it becomes more difficult to measure emotional states, says de Waal. Most invertebrates, for example, cannot express or express emotions in their faces — if they have anything like a face at all. The nervous system, physiology, and sensory experiences of invertebrates are unlike ours, and developing experiments to measure their emotions has been challenging.

De Waal posits that deep-seated assumptions were another obstacle to the study of invertebrate emotions. “You can see that bees can get restless, so they must have emotional states. But nobody really talked about it, and nobody took it seriously,” he says. That is now beginning to change, for both bees and other invertebrates.

“When I was a graduate student in the ’90s, people would never have taken seriously the idea that bees could have emotional states. People would have laughed,” says Chittka.

Looking at lobster

In the 1990s, crustacean researcher Robert Elwood, now neuroscientist emeritus at Queen’s University Belfast, met popular British seafood chef Rick Stein in a pub. When Stein learned that Elwood was studying crustaceans, he asked him if lobsters felt pain. The same question had been pondered by philosophers, writers, and scientists for years. As David Foster Wallace noted in his famous essay “Consider the Lobster,” crustaceans are the only animals we still kill—by slow death, no less by boiling and steaming—in kitchens.

“I thought, ‘That’s a very stupid question because you can’t get an answer to that,'” recalls Elwood. But Elwood’s curiosity was piqued, and after parting ways with Stein, the scientist began seriously considering how he would answer the chef’s question.

Whether lobsters feel pain when cooked alive remains an open question for some. © iStock.com, Philip Rozensk

At the time, many scientists had accepted that vertebrates, at least, could feel pain. This pain went beyond a knee-jerk aversion—or nociception—much like automatically withdrawing your hand from a hot stove. Most scientists today agree that pain is a complicated emotional and physical condition. “Pain, by definition, is both a physical and an emotional experience,” says Robyn Crook, a pain researcher and neurophysiologist at San Francisco State University who studies cephalopods. “It has to be her. . . sensation of something noxious in the central nervous system, but also the higher cognitive processing associated with that sensation, which . . . an emotional response that we characterize as pain.”

But most scientists in the 1990s were convinced that invertebrates couldn’t feel pain, says Elwood. Instead, scientists hypothesized that insects, fish, and crabs rely solely on instinct to avoid injury during their relatively short lifespans. As recently as 2010, the Canadian Senate’s official decision was that invertebrates cannot feel pain, based on evidence found in insects. This was accepted dogma because some insects actually behave as if they didn’t feel anything at all. Locusts continue to chew leaves while being consumed by predators, and many insects do not limp in response to injury.

“It was thought that they couldn’t possibly feel pain because all of their reactions are purely knee-jerk,” says Elwood. “I thought . . . it should be possible to ask, ‘Are the reactions knee-jerk or not?'” If the reactions weren’t purely knee-jerk, this would open up the possibility that the animals could feel pain.

Beginning in the late 2000s, Elwood began testing whether crustaceans feel pain. Elwood began working with shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) and asked if the crabs were dissecting or rubbing a supposedly painful area. After applying acetic acid — a mild irritant — to the crabs’ antennae, they found that the crabs rubbed their antennae against the glass of their aquarium, apparently in an attempt to dislodge the acid. The reaction was reversible with the application of an anesthetic, says a dynamic Elwood, “consistent with the notion of pain.” The crabs also appeared to be able to learn and change their behavior in response to electric shocks, suggesting that their processing of the shock was more than a reflex response.

Arena with two dark shelters where crabs would get shocks on one side and not Barry Magee on the other

In the wild, shore crabs hide under rocks during low tide, as predators are likely to kill and eat them outdoors. In another experiment, Elwood built a brightly lit, open enclosure with shallow water and placed two dark, crab-sized shelters on either side. When the researchers placed the crabs in the center of the tank, the crabs immediately ran to one of the shelters and showed a side preference on repeated attempts at the task. But once they started receiving electric shocks in their preferred shelter, they changed their preference and showed they might be able to experience and learn from painful stimuli, Elwood says. “It seemed consistent with the idea of ​​pain. . . The function of pain appears to be to provide long-term protection.”

“The fact that they remember these places means they experienced pain,” argues de Waals.

In subsequent experiments, Elwood showed that crabs respond to stress after being electrocuted, and that hermit crabs (Pagurus bernhardus) also changed their preferences in response to shocks, choosing to leave their shell after receiving painful stimuli, but only if the Scent of a predator was not present.

The idea that invertebrates feel pain was met with deep skepticism from other researchers, who argue they still think the evidence for pain in crustaceans is thin.

Karen Mesce, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, points out that crustaceans — like insects — lack the nervous system structures that allow humans and vertebrates to feel pain. In humans, pain and fear are processed in the amygdala and limbic cortex, which is lacking in the brains of crustaceans and insects. Human brains “have these special structures so that we can remember a heightened sense of whether things are good or bad,” she says.

Mesce argues that insects don’t need an emotional state or even a brain to learn to avoid painful stimuli. She notes that in a study in which researchers shocked the legs of headless cockroaches in a salt bath, the insect bodies “learned” to keep their legs raised out of the water. And most would argue that a headless cockroach doesn’t experience an emotionally similar state, Mesce says.

David Merrit, an entomologist at the University of Queensland in Australia who co-authored an important 1984 review of invertebrate pain that argued against the existence of pain in insects, agrees. Insects — and their close evolutionary relatives, crustaceans — can learn to avoid noxious stimuli, he says, but it seems unlikely that crabs and insects would feel anything akin to human pain when shocked.

“Think of an electric shock stimulus. When we are shocked, it goes straight to our pain center and overwhelms our senses. But it’s a stretch to say that [invertebrates] feel pain the same way we do,” says Merrit. “The word ‘feeling’ is human. We think we could put it down to animals or insects, but we really can’t.”

But de Waal argues that the ability to process and remember their environment suggests the existence of an internal state, further suggesting that invertebrates have emotional abilities. “If you learn from . . Good or bad experiences, you have to have experiences, which means you have feelings,” he says. “So if I shock you and you learn from it, it means you must have experienced pain. Otherwise, why would you remember the situation? Memory . . . means you have experience.”

Super smart cephalopods

While there is no clear consensus on the existence of pain in insects, more researchers seem to subscribe to the idea that cephalopods have the ability to feel pain.

Crook, who also studies pain in mammals, said she was curious about pain and its relationships to the basic organizing principles of the animal mind, so she began researching pain in smarter invertebrates — cephalopods — including Bock’s pygmy octopus (Octopus bocki). “I became interested in where in the animal kingdom pain is found and why. Is pain exclusively a human/mammal thing or is it more widespread?”

See “What Scientists Learned from Putting Octopuses in MRI Machines”

A common method used to assess pain in rodents is the CPP (Conditioned Place Preference) test, which assesses an animal’s ability to remember and learn which side of an environment it was shocked from. As sea creatures, octopuses move and explore their surroundings in fundamentally different ways than mammals, which means Crook had to adapt the behavioral test to their needs. It “wasn’t an easy task,” says Crook, which is probably why experiments like this had never been done before.

Crook designed a tank top with two visually different sides, one with stripes and one with polka dots. After a single pelvic workout, an octopus would develop a preference for one side or the other. Crook and her team then drugged the squid and injected diluted acetic acid into one of its tentacles, which Crook describes as the equivalent of a “stick of lemon juice in a slice.” When the octopus woke up, presumably with a rather sore tentacle, the researchers confined it to the side of the chamber it preferred less. When the acid was gone about 20 minutes after the injection, the octopus was taken out and added back in five hours later. Crook and her colleagues observed which side of the tank the octopus spent its time on and found that the animals avoided the side they were confined on when receiving the acid treatment. The task is cognitively demanding, says Crook. It requires the octopus to remember where it’s been and give that place a negative value – so maybe have a sense of it.

Octopus bocki in an air-conditioned place prefers tank Robyn Crook

“The interpretation is that [the octopus] chooses based on its assessment of its mental or affective state, which it remembers from a previous experience,” says Crook. The find has been hailed as the best evidence yet of invertebrate emotions. Crook says it shows that pain, and therefore emotions, have evolved in parallel along different branches of the evolutionary tree and are not just limited to mammals. She adds that she hopes scientists can go beyond the question of whether octopuses feel pain and answer questions about their well-being.

“I loved [Crook’s] work,” says Shelly Adamo, a neuroscientist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, who has worked with insects, crustaceans, and cephalopods throughout her career. Adamo says she thinks insects are unlikely to feel pain because “insects and crustaceans have what’s called a distributed nervous system. They have many brains throughout their bodies, [which] reduces information-processing power.” In contrast, “cephalopods have taken these mini-brains and crammed them all into one big main brain, just like us.” So, she says, it is more likely that cephalopods can feel pain than other invertebrates, and the paper is “good evidence that [pain] might be there.”

“It was nice to see, and I think it’s a study beyond reasonable doubt,” says Crook. “But it’s very hard to convince people who are on the fence or who clearly don’t believe in invertebrate emotions.”

pain points

Mesce, Adamo, and Merritt all question whether invertebrates, with their relatively simple nervous systems, have the processing power to feel emotions. They also wonder why invertebrates need emotions in the first place. With so few neurons (lobsters have about 1 million while humans have about 86 billion), Adamo argues, using energy for emotions could be wasteful. “When you look at animals, which have increasingly smaller brains, they can be very picky about what abilities they have. It may be that [small-brained animals] only have one type of emotion, which is a faint echo of what we would recognize as an emotion.”

Andrews says this is a common argument – that while the physiological components, like an increase in heart rate after seeing a snake, are clearly beneficial, the felt aspect is unnecessary for invertebrates. One could argue, says Andrews, that the felt aspect of emotions is just as unnecessary for vertebrates. Artificial intelligences and robots, for example, don’t have emotions like pain, but can pretend they do. But the simplest explanation for the felt aspect of emotions, argues Andrews, is that emotions have some sort of evolutionary meaning. “If something doesn’t have a function, it can’t evolve, right? The function of [emotions] is to learn. . . why else would I approach anything. . . if I didn’t have a positive emotion associated with that thing?”

“For most animals, pain is a way in which the animal interprets the tissue damage or whatever is being done. And that very uncomfortable feeling makes learning so much easier,” agrees Elwood.

Look beyond the pain

Some evidence suggests that smaller animals, with even smaller nervous systems and brains, can feel not only pain but also more complicated emotions like optimism and pessimism. Chittka had been watching bees learn amazingly complex tricks for years when he stumbled upon a paper postulating that bees have pessimistic cognitive biases. In the study, researchers placed bees in a vorticizer, an instrument used to mix liquids. After vigorously shaking the bees, the scientists then exposed the insects to an ambiguous stimulus, a mixture of one odor associated with a reward and another associated with a bitter-tasting substance. Similar to depressed people, he says, the shaken bees seemed to judge the ambiguous substance negatively and became increasingly reluctant to investigate the mixed smell.

Negative and positive cognitive biases are complicated emotional states that are often used to measure animal welfare, says Chittka. Intrigued by the experiment, he decided to conduct a similar experiment, this time testing whether bees might also have positive cognitive biases. In his experiment, a single bee climbed into a flight chamber via a metal tube. The bee climbed into one end and saw two target squares on the other end – one blue and one green. Below the colored square was a small cylinder that the bee had to climb through to potentially get a reward. Below the blue target, the bee received a sugar water reward. But under the green, the bee received quinine, a sugar that, while not poisonous, is bitter and repulsive to the insects.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) caught by crab spider Lars Chittka

After some training, when bees saw a blue target, they would rush to the reward within seconds. But when they saw the green target, it took them significantly longer to land on that square.

In a subsequent experiment, Chittka gave some of the trained bees a drop of sugar water before entering the chamber. Others were given sugar-free water. He then presented the bees with an ambiguous stimulus: a greenish-blue square. To Chittka’s surprise, this time the bees that received sugar water tended to get to the cylinder much faster, an indication that they might have been expecting a reward.

In humans, “someone who is optimistic and not depressed is more likely to view such an ambiguous situation as potentially a good thing,” says Chittka.

The researchers’ interpretation was that the bees receiving sugar entered a positive affective state, perhaps resembling optimism, and were biased to perceive the ambiguous stimulus as positive. The team also found that sugar rewards had no effect when they blocked dopamine, a signal associated with reward and learning in mammals.

“It’s surprising. We’re dealing with animals whose brains are the size of a pinhead and only have about a million neurons,” Chittka says are individuals with whom we share our planet.”

Still, Merritt argues that emotions in bees are far removed from anything comparable to emotions in humans. “Well, they might have some kind of neural state that we might equate to an emotion. . . . but then to take all the baggage that we’ve associated with humans and attach it to insects and other invertebrates — I think that’s a mistake,” he says. He adds that he doubts the results are applicable to other insect species, which may still be acting purely on instinct.

Ethical implications of invertebrate pain

Although researchers can’t agree on whether or not invertebrates feel emotions, some lawmakers are convinced of the possibility. In 2013, the UK, which has some of the strictest animal welfare measures in the world, added cephalopods to its list of protected animals under the Animals in Scientific Procedures Act (ASPA), which regulates how animals are used in research. These types of protections are being extended to other invertebrates as well. In 2018, Switzerland banned the cooking of lobsters alive. According to The Guardian, Elwood’s research played a role in that decision. And in late 2021, the UK passed legislation recognizing some invertebrates, including crabs and lobsters, as sentient. The decision was based on a report commissioned by the government and compiled by the London School of Economics (LSE), which established a framework of eight criteria for determining whether decapod crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters could experience pain, suffering or harm (including the presence of nociceptors, integrated brain regions and whether analgesia can prevent pain responses). The law requires UK ministers to take animal sentience into account when implementing new animal welfare directives. Although the law had no immediate impact on animal welfare in the UK, it could result in future restrictions on how lobsters and crabs are treated in research settings. However, animal welfare laws vary widely from country to country, and in the US such laws only apply to certain vertebrates in the context of breeding, laboratory research, and animal cruelty.

Recognizing pain in invertebrates, Andrews says, could, or perhaps should, affect the way humans interact with such animals. Most people do not want to cause unnecessary pain to an animal. But the details of what to do when we know an animal is in pain — if, for example, animal husbandry or research practices should change — are up for debate. Even in relation to vertebrates, “these are all tricky ethical questions,” says Andrews.

Octopus bocki Robyn Crook

As evidence mounts that invertebrates are capable of experiencing something like emotions, it could lead to further changes in animal welfare laws that have far-reaching implications for how animals are used in animal experiments or for consumption.

Crook and Andrews say that invertebrate emotional states can be very different from human emotions, but perhaps it’s worth understanding why invertebrates intrinsically have emotion-like states. “When we talk about ‘how does an animal feel,’ it kind of asks what you’re allowed to do to that animal, right? Therefore, it is often approached in a very utilitarian way. . . anthropocentric human supremacist view and not necessarily about the broader evolutionary life of animals,” says Crook.

“I think it’s easier for humans to say, ‘Oh, my dog ​​has emotions,’ but it’s harder for humans to recognize emotions in a crab, for example. It’s a very automatic response,” says Andrews. “But then you have to be careful not to humanize yourself and make sure that you don’t just project your own feelings” onto the animal. Questioning our relationships with animals and how animals’ emotions relate to ours, she says, “is the beginning of research, not the end.”

By Sara Caruso

Whether you’re a beginner or have years of experience caring for hermit crabs, here are some facts you might not know about these interesting little creatures.

1. The hermit crabs most commonly found in the pet trade are known as Crimson Pincers (Coenobita clypeatus). Native to the Caribbean, they are among the hardiest hermit species.

2. In the wild, purple pincers spend most of their time climbing and borrowing under trees.

3. Despite their name, hermit crabs live in large groups and are very social. That’s why it’s important to adopt three or more.

4. Hermit crabs communicate by chirping. Their soft, high-pitched chirping sounds like a small frog. Chirping can mean a territorial dispute or that the crab was startled.

5. Purple pincers have modified gills that allow them to breathe on land. The water stored in their shell creates moisture that allows for oxygen exchange.

6. Wild female hermit crabs can hold hundreds of eggs in their shell until they mature. When the eggs are ready to hatch, she goes to a tide pool or ocean and releases them.

7. Hermit crabs have distinct smells that can indicate their health. A healthy crab smells like maple syrup. A very slight smell of eggs could mean your crab is about to molt. If your crab smells like an old boot, it could mean the start of a bacterial infection.

8. Hermit crabs shed their exoskeleton to grow. The average crab molts once a year. Younger smaller crabs may molt several times a year, while larger older crabs over ten years old may molt as little as once in eighteen months.

9. In captivity, hermit crabs can live up to forty years if kept under the right conditions. In the wild, their lifespan is usually short. Much of a feral hermit’s survival depends on finding an empty shell of the right size to protect its soft body from predators. If the shell is too small, the hermit crab cannot retreat far enough into the shell to avoid being eaten. So hermits instinctively switch covers and look for the perfect fit.

10. Hermits also change their shell as they grow. Some hermits try on several shells before committing. When selecting new larger shells to offer to your hermit crabs, choose ones with an opening or opening that is slightly wider than the shell it is currently ingesting. The best time to offer new shells is around and during a full moon.

11. Humidity and temperature are vital for hermit crab survival. They thrive at temperatures between 70 and 76 degrees with 80% humidity. Monitor your crabs for signs of temperature stress, such as lethargy or drooping limbs.

12. Never use a sponge to wet a hermit crab enclosure. A damp or wet sponge is a breeding ground for bacteria that can be fatal to hermit crabs. Instead, use a spray bottle to lightly mist the crab enclosure with clean water twice a day. When nebulizing, hold the spray bottle about 30 cm above the case.

13. Since hermit crabs are nocturnal scavengers, they prefer to be fed at night. In the morning remove all

leftovers and replace their water.

14. Hermit crabs are scavengers by nature and like to pick at their food. Some of her favorite foods include boiled chicken on the bone, ribs, pork, fish, broccoli, apples, mangoes, unsalted nuts, corn on the cob, boiled egg served with chunks of broken eggshell and the occasional little fat pizza. (Yes. Seriously, eggshells and pizza.) Both are good sources of calcium. A pinch of sea salt should be added to the feed once a week.

15. Just before molting, your hermit crab may appear lethargic. No panic. Leave it alone for a few days and see what happens. After one molt, the crab is soft and weak. Offer him water and don’t touch him. A hermit crab’s new exoskeleton takes about seven days to harden. Hermit crabs eat their skinned exoskeleton to replenish important minerals and help their new exoskeleton grow.

16. It’s important to handle your hermit crabs so they get used to you. When you first interact with them, place the crabs on your fully flattened palm. Each crease can give the crabs something to hold on to, leading to accidental pinching. After becoming accustomed to handling, hermits tend to use their large claw less for grasping.

17. Hermit crabs do not transmit human diseases. As with any pet, washing your hands is important. Before interacting with your hermit crabs or their food, it is extremely important to wash your hands thoroughly to remove all traces of sunscreen or insect repellent.

18. Hermit crabs love to explore their surroundings indoors when supervised. LEGO® buildings, dollhouses and block obstacle courses are great exercise and enrichment. It’s fun to watch them explore.

19. Hermit crabs have tiny stiff hairs on their legs and chest that help them sense their surroundings. They will touch new food with their feelers to taste it and make sure it’s good to eat.

20. Hermit crabs like warm, dark places to hide. If you lose your crab in your house, check your shoes and under furniture.

Hermit crabs are fun and interesting pets that never cease to amaze. With the right care, your hermit crabs can live a long happy life.

US scientists have discovered that CRABS HAVE a type of inner ear that helps them hear nearby predators.

An organ called the statocyst, previously shown to play a role in crustacean balance, is also used for the crab equivalent of hearing, they reported in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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Biologists at Northeastern University in Massachusetts conducted laboratory experiments on mud crabs — small crustaceans found on reefs in the Gulf of Mexico — to see how they respond to underwater sounds.

The team placed a thin sensor under the crab’s carapace to measure electrical activity in the statocyst.

Then they placed the crabs in a tank and played back recordings of feeding sounds made by three species of predatory fish – the hardhead catfish, the black drum and the oystertoadfish.

They found that when the crabs heard the sounds of catfish and toadfish, the crabs abruptly stopped hunting for clams, a behavior that’s a prelude to searching for shelter.

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They were far less disturbed by the acoustics of the black drum, a fish whose loud feeding noise can be heard from afar and therefore may not pose an immediate threat.

The team ruled out vibrations or pressure differences as stimuli to which the crabs responded. The animals “can perceive sounds across a range of frequencies,” they concluded.

– © AFP, 2014

“Hey man, I’ll make you a deal. A bucket of ping pong balls for $5. Win your little girl a goldfish.”

The selling point varies from one showman to the next, but the idea is the same — strike a smoking deal to win your child a pet neither of you really wanted. Then follows a familiar routine of begging, pleading, and promising to take care of the creature you haven’t won yet.

By the way, my parents never gave in to requests to play games for live prizes, which were usually goldfish. The general rule was if it had to live in a cage or a tank, it didn’t come home. I always thought I was a parent like that too, but a guinea pig and two hermit crabs later, and I’m sure that’s not the case. To be fair, the hermit crabs came home from dad’s house with Vayda after a carnival night. I’m still wondering when did they update the prices?

Goldfish are one thing, but hermit crabs are another level of commitment. Although carnivals, fairs, and souvenir shops near the beach try to pass them off as everyone’s pet, they’re far from it. Oh, and the starter kit that came with your new pet is basically a death trap, perfect for ensuring slow suffocation when their delicate gills dry up.

So how do you take care of your new friends without dooming them to a slow and miserable death? Consider what is available in their natural habitats and ensure they have access to the resources they need to survive.

Housing. As I mentioned above, the clear plastic containers with snap-on, vented tops are not safe homes for hermit crabs. Hermit crabs breathe through modified gills, which means they need moist air to breathe. Hermit crabs cannot breathe air and will drown in water, so the best way to maintain humidity is with an ideal enclosure. This includes aquariums and marine terrariums that are strong enough to hold wet sand, with covers that allow some ventilation, keeping the crabs and moisture in. It can take months for a hermit crab’s gills to dry out to the point of suffocation, but their ability to breathe will deteriorate long before death. water sources. Hermit crabs require both freshwater and saltwater sources to survive. Salt water should be made from sea salt sold for marine fish and crustaceans. Both salt water and fresh water must be treated with water treatment fluid to neutralize any chlorine in the water – city water contains chlorine that is toxic to hermit crabs. You can also choose to use bottled spring water instead of water from your tap to avoid chlorine exposure. The water bowls should be big enough for your hermit crabs to submerge in, but not so deep that they can drown. Use non-metallic containers for water bowls. sponges. It’s important to offer your hermit crabs sponges in both their saltwater and freshwater dishes. The sponges provide a handy safety raft in any water bowl to prevent drowning. It’s also a good idea to place damp sponges in their habitat to help maintain a humidity level of 75%. Sand. Sand is preferable to rock for lining the floor of your hermit crab enclosure. When your crabs molt, they need a safe place to burrow. For this reason, it’s a good idea to provide at least 3 to 6 inches of sand for them to burrow into. The best type of sand is one that provides a source of calcium for your crabs. Calcium. Offering squid, oyster shells, egg shells, and calcium blocks are other ways to provide the calcium you need. Meal. Hermit crabs are omnivores, which means they require both meat and plant-based food sources in their diet. It’s a good idea to feed your crabs a good commercial food, alternating between offering them snacks like coconut, romaine lettuce, apple, white bread, sea-salted or unsalted popcorn, peanut butter, fish, and chicken. Be sure to wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly before feeding them to your crab. Meats can be served raw or cooked, but avoid meats with preservatives (this includes salt). Leftover food must be removed daily to avoid spoilage. Heating. Hermit crabs like it when the temperature is between 70 and 75 degrees F, so it’s a good idea to put a heater under one end of your tank. Heat lamps and full spectrum lights are not recommended as they can negatively affect the humidity in the tank. Bathe as needed. At different times of the year, your hermit crab’s bathing needs will change. However, a bathing routine is important all year round to ensure the necessary moisture. In humid climates, bathe your hermit crab twice a week during the summer and once a week during all other seasons. In arid climates, or if your home experiences dry heat, you should bathe your crab every other day. You can also mist your hermit crabs daily to replace bathing. Provide additional bowls. After hermit crabs molt, they move into larger shells. You must provide at least three options per crab. The shells should be larger than their current shells and the openings should be the size of their larger pliers. Make friends with your crabs. In their natural environment, hermit crabs live in groups of a few dozen to hundreds. They thrive in company and are more active when living in pairs. Provide things to climb on and hide under. Hermit crabs love to climb. Provide lots of branches, rocks and corals for climbing. They also enjoy hidden huts where they can relax during the day.

Always remember to move slowly around them as they have compound eyes and can detect movement very easily. Always keep an eye on open claws and their relationship to you. When something touches an open claw it is a natural reaction or instinct for the crab to strike.

If you’re picking up a crab that you’re unfamiliar with, use the hand you’re writing with to hold the crab’s shell by the shell. Place your other palm firmly outstretched (no loose skin) directly under the crab’s walking legs so their legs are touching your outstretched hand. If the crab tries to grab your hand, all you have to do is lift it gently. Holding hermit crabs this way will make them feel much more secure and less likely to pinch. When you dangle a hermit crab in the air, it will hold on in any way it can, including its pincers. As you and the crab begin to trust each other, you may want to walk him across the palm of your hand. It’s like getting to know any animal; it takes a little time and patience.

HAND FEEDING

Most of my customers who have met me at the flea market know my love of hand-feeding treats to my large crabs. I started using the long stem of a Bic pen as a spoon years ago. Now at The Hermit Crab Patch we are known for our Jumbo Feeder Spoons which we sell for customers to continue the practice. Food is a great motivational tool and the way to love is through the stomach for most people, right? Yes, even that of a hermit crab! People initially think it’s a little weird to see me feeding a giant hermit crab tropical fruit baby food with a special spoon… However, the crabs really react in a way that can’t be denied. In a few “feeds” I can turn a crab that rarely comes out of its shell into a crab that allows me to pet its tail. Hermit crabs adapt very quickly to hand-feeding. They learn to associate dealing with the reward of food and an amazing level of trust is the result. I strongly encourage my customers to try hand feeding. It’s a great way to bond with your hermit crab!

PINCH

Unfortunately, as a hermit crab owner, it’s only a matter of time before you get caught. There are ways to deal with this. My favorite technique is trying to get the crab to walk away from what it’s holding on to. By trying to get him to move, he ultimately has to let go. Another technique is to run it under lukewarm water if you happen to be near a sink. I recently had this misfire with a jumbo crab. He had a death grip on my hand and when I held him under lukewarm water it startled him to pinch even harder. Most of the time, crabs tend to let go fairly quickly.

WANDERING

If you let a crab roam outside of its cage, make sure the crab is not in danger. Hermit crabs can’t see down like we can, so you’ll want to make sure they don’t fall off. They may not always feel the edge of a table with a single swipe of their antennae. Keep an eye on crabs around other pets and small children. Also, make sure crabs don’t get into something poisonous, such as. B. Pesticides in the garden if you let them roam outside. Remember that they are always exploring and tasting what is around them.

NO DISEASES

Hermit crabs do not carry any diseases known to us like turtles and reptiles that can transmit salmonella. It’s always a good idea to wash your hands after handling crab anyway. Before handling crabs, also be aware of what you may have come into contact with, such as lotions.

If you are patient and give Hermie time to trust you, your efforts will likely be rewarded. If that’s the case, try hand-feeding him fresh fruits and vegetables as well as meat. He may like to move freely, but if he doesn’t allow him to, he may fall, e.g. B. on a table or where he is prone to other pets or possibly ingesting something harmful like chemicals. Despite your best efforts to socialize your animal, you may end up with just one crab that isn’t interested in interacting with you. If that’s the case, allow him to enjoy life in his rabbit and turn your attention to one of his housemates. Hermit crabs are pets, not toys, which is the most important thing to keep in mind.

Hermit crabs are known to be inquisitive and amusing creatures, which is one of the reasons they make such popular pets, in addition to the fact that they are incredibly easy to care for. But if you bring your hermit crabs home and they suddenly seem dormant, you might start to worry. Has something happened to your hermit crabs? Are you sick or just sleeping? This leads to a multitude of questions that we hope to answer in this article.

How long do hermit crabs sleep?

Hermit crabs are nocturnal creatures, so they naturally sleep during the day and come out at night. This is mainly due to dehydration problems. A crab can dry out very quickly in the hot sun, so it’s best for a crab to stay indoors to stay safe and hydrated. As such, crabs tend to be most active at night rather than during daylight hours. Of course, this is likely to be disappointing for you, the hermit crab owner looking to enjoy your new pet! However, feeding your hermit crab first thing in the morning is more likely to keep them awake and active.

Hermit crabs cannot sleep all day. Still, many of them may live in their shells for most of the day unless lured out. What they do there the rest of the time is unclear, but it’s estimated that hermit crabs actually sleep 6-8 hours, similar to humans.

Do hermit crabs always sleep in their shell?

A hermit crab’s shell offers it protection from various predators who would find a delicious meal inside. But if it gets too wet there, a hermit crab will leave the safety of the shell and burrow in the sand. Hermit crabs get very active when it’s humid, so they don’t always roost in their shell when the humidity gets high enough.

Is it okay for hermit crabs to sleep in clusters?

This is normal behavior for hermit crabs. They are incredibly social creatures and live in large colonies in the wild. Many sleeping crabs are seen in these colonies, so it is not surprising or strange to see this in native crab colonies as well.

How does temperature and humidity affect a hermit crab’s sleep?

If your hermit crab’s environment is the wrong temperature or humidity, it can result in him spending more time sleeping and much less time being active. This isn’t always the cause of such behavior, but if you do see this behavior you should make sure the conditions in your crab habitat are ideal. The humidity should be at least 70%. The temperature should be between 65-80 degrees Fahrenheit.

How to wake a sleeping hermit crab

If you want to wake up your hermit crabs, there are several easy ways to do it.

1. Place an active crab nearby

As previously mentioned, hermit crabs are social creatures. If you bring an active crab close to another sleeping crab, it will wake up the sleeping crab for you.

2. Put the crab on your palm

Pick up the crab and place it on your outstretched palm. Its sensory antennae sense the change in the environment and wake up the crab. But be careful, the crab might pinch you in self-defense if it leaves the shell!

3. Bathe it

You can pick up your crab and submerge it in room temperature dechlorinated water. If the water isn’t room temperature, it could shock the crab, so make sure the water is the right temperature.

4. Set the temperature

If the temperature in your crab’s habitat isn’t currently between 65 and 80 degrees, then do what you have to do to adjust it. Your crabs will be much more active in this temperature range.

Conclusion

Hermit crabs are nocturnal creatures, so don’t expect too much activity from them during the day. However, you can trick a crab into staying awake with some food. If you want to wake up your crab, bathing it or laying it on the palm of your hand is easy enough. Although hermit crabs spend most of the day inactive, they probably only sleep about 6-8 hours like us. If you find your crabs are sleeping too much, make sure their enclosure is between 65 and 80 degrees and humidity above 70% to encourage maximum hermit crab activity.

Looking for more information about hermit crabs? See our articles on:

Selected image source: Geekgal, Shutterstock

Some say the hissing sound made when crustaceans hit the boiling water is a scream (it’s not, they don’t have vocal cords). However, lobsters and crabs may want to do so as a new report suggests they could feel pain.

In a British lab experiment published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, European shore crabs likely avoided dark shelters in a tank that electroshocked the crabs. The data “are consistent with key criteria for pain perception and are broadly similar to those from vertebrate studies,” say the authors.

Robert Elwood, a biologist at Queen’s University in the UK and author of the report, says it’s impossible to know whether an animal feels pain or not because humans can’t experience it themselves. It’s long been known that crustaceans and other animals experience something known as “nociception,” a knee-jerk action — moving away from, say, a toxic chemical or a fire — that evolved as a survival skill, but isn’t necessarily uncomfortable. But the behavior of the crabs in his study — crabs that were initially subjected to shocks in a particular shelter avoided that shelter in future trials — suggests they may be feeling genuine pain.

“They keep showing that this is more than just a reflex,” says Elwood. “Annoyingly, I can’t conclude with certainty that they feel pain because it’s a logical impossibility. … But their behavior has provided me with data consistent with pain.”

Elwood says he will not advocate for the fishing industry to make any changes to the way it does business — lobsters are kept in small tanks, some crabs have their claws removed at sea before being thrown back into the water, many crustaceans are boiled or steamed alive – because he does not want to lose his objectivity as a scientist. “I’m a scientist, not an activist,” he says.

But he also says it might be time, as novelist David Foster Wallace once wrote, “Think about the lobster.” In a 2004 essay for Gourmet Magazine, Wallace asked, “Is it okay cooking a sentient being alive just for our taste buds pleasure?” Elwood says it might be time to make some changes.

“I very much doubt that my experiments will change the way the fishing industry works, but it could be the first step,” he says. “Animals should have a good life and a good death, and I think in many cases these crustaceans don’t have a good death.”

A representative from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says that much of the success they’ve had in lobbying for better treatment of crustaceans has been on the consumer side.

“There’s no scientific reason to treat marine animals any differently because we’re not as familiar with them as dogs and cats or pigs and cows,” says Ashley Byrne, campaigns specialist at PETA. “I think people are learning that sea creatures feel pain and choosing not to eat them.”

Bill Sieling, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents more than 70 Maryland seafood processors, says the news is unlikely to change anything.

“They’ve been cooked since the [Native Americans] started doing it many years ago, and it’s not going to stop now,” he says.

Sieling says some top restaurants soak crabs in ice water before cooking them so their claws don’t come off during cooking, and others kill crabs with an ice pick just before they’re cooked. But the vast majority of them are cooked alive.

“Crabs don’t have brains like we do — they have a cluster of neurons, so they have the ability to decide what they want to do,” he says. “But I’ve never heard of anyone raising issues about how they’re being treated.”

Aside from Disney’s Sebastian and Tamatoa, crabs aren’t known for their acoustic abilities. The Ghost Crab could change that. The beach-dwelling crustacean can make loud, croaking noises not only with its claws but also with its intestines, new research shows.

Scientists have long known that ghost crabs (Ocypode quadrata) — native to the beaches of the Atlantic coast of the United States — can make sounds by rubbing together a series of ridges on their claws, a bit like crickets. This “stridulation” is often in response to threats – either from a predator or another ghost crab. The sounds are believed to be both a warning (like a rattlesnake rattling) and an indicator of a crab’s size and strength.

Now researchers have discovered that ghost crabs can make a similar sound elsewhere in their bodies. The scientists placed a series of microphones around ghost crab tanks and provoked the animals with rods, other crabs, or spider-like remote-controlled toys. A vibration-sensitive laser paired with X-ray imaging allowed the team to locate a non-clawing sound, originating from a small, comb-like structure the crabs use to grind food in their foregut (called the gastric grinder). By rubbing the comb’s teeth over another structure called a medial tooth, the animals can produce a sound similar to claw stridulation (hear below). The frequency (about 2 kilohertz) is audible to many of the crab’s common enemies, such as birds and raccoons, as well as other ghost crabs (and humans).

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JenniferTaylor

Using the Gastric Mill for communication frees the Ghost Crab’s claws for combat and defense, and even allows the animals to communicate during combat, allowing them to transmit their size to intimidate rivals. Researchers theorize that the crabs rely on their claws to make sounds when threats are farther away, but then switch to the stomach system when danger is closer.

Perhaps one of the cutest things about hermit crabs is the way they treat their shells. Have you ever seen what happens when a hermit crab is ready to change shells? Several crabs line up and take turns trying on shells based on size until they’re all perfect – talk about teamwork!

But what happens when you get home and find that one of your hermit crabs is out of its shell? Is this dangerous? Before you panic, let us help you figure out how to help your hermit crab.

Mussels are essential

If you own a hermit crab, you know how much they like to hide in their shell. It seems like every time you move a little too fast, they’ll immediately dive right back in. So you know the importance of a sense of security provided by your case.

Without this protective layer, its exoskeleton is exposed and very vulnerable to outside elements. So if you walk in to check on your crab and find it has left its shell, you might freak out for a minute.

But don’t jump to conclusions just yet. We’ll explain why a hermit crab leaves its shell and what you can do to help it get back in.

What does a clam do?

Your hermit crab’s shell forms a protective barrier around its delicate exoskeleton. Not only does it protect them from damage, but it also keeps their body from dehydrating. Without a shell, your hermit crab is completely vulnerable to heat, light, and air. Without them, they can die quickly.

It is common for crabs to come out of their carapace during moulting. Once they shed their exoskeleton, they will molt again.

What makes a hermit crab leave its shell?

Surprisingly, hermit crabs can come out of their shell for a number of reasons. Most of them are environmental, but it could also have something to do with their health. Let’s take a look at why this is happening in the first place so you can prevent it in the future.

1. Stress

As unfortunate as it is, during the shipping and distribution of hermit crabs to pet stores, they can make crabs very unhealthy. If the hermit crab you bought is highly stressed, it can cause it to come out of its shell and die.

This can happen due to physical damage, shipping issues, and improper care.

2. grenade fight

If you have multiple hermit crabs that grow at different rates but don’t have enough extra shelves to accommodate them, it can lead to grenade fights. This process takes place when hermit crabs start fighting for their shell, which can be very dangerous.

It can also happen when a hermit crab abandons its shell to find a better one and another steals the used one. Without matching shells, your hermit is out of luck until you intervene.

3. Irritation

Hermit crabs are easily exposed and can get dirt and other irritants in the shell. It could be that the hermit crab is trying to get rid of the anger by getting out of the shell. You must adequately clean the interior to ensure it is free of small particles.

4. Unsuitable environment

Hermit crabs are extremely sensitive to their environment. They need a certain level of humidity and the right temperature in their cage to be happy. When it’s too hot or too cold, other environmental factors come into play that make them uncomfortable. In these scenarios, exiting your shell is to be expected.

Hermit crabs are cold-blooded, which means they need different temperatures in their environment to regulate themselves. Like many other cold-blooded creatures, they need a warm and a cool side of their tank. In between, they can move freely as needed.

The hot end of the cage should not exceed 85°F. The cool side of the cage should not fall below 70°F. These two components must be available to them at all times.

5. Death

At some point, your beloved hermit crab will have to say goodbye. When they pass, they fall out of their shells. It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened, but it can occur due to age or an undetected illness.

How to get a hermit crab back in the shell

Note: If your hermit crab is molting, skip this section and read the next subheading.

Before you try to put the hermit crab back in its shell, you need to understand that this is a delicate process. Their bodies are incredibly fragile, so handling them can damage them and even cause death. Therefore, it is important to treat them properly.

Before you even do anything, carefully pick up the hermit crab from behind its hind legs or gently scoop it up with a spoon or other shovel. Examine them thoroughly to look for any external wounds or abnormalities. If everything looks as it should, it’s time to work on the shell.

Boil the shell in dechlorinated water to remove any bacteria or debris on or in the shell.

Get a container just big enough for the crab and shell. Add more dechlorinated water to the bottom to fill slightly – just enough to cover the bottom. This will give your crab the moisture it needs to comfortably fit back in.

Place the crab and shell in a container large enough to hold those two things. Observe visually, but don’t disturb your crab – it may take a while to shell again.

Moulting hermit crabs

It would be best if you don’t handle a crab that’s shedding, as it’s extra soft and delicate at this point. Instead, use the lower dome portion of a two-liter bottle to place over it. Poke a few holes in the bottle for ventilation and place two matching seashells in the container.

You need to keep an eye on your crabs as they may try to burrow into their substrate. If this happens, take a shovel and dig deep into the substrate to lift it to the surface without touching it.

Do not add extra water. His body isn’t in the right shape to handle the excess moisture.

Once they regain their strength, they will soon climb back into the shell. Molting takes a lot of energy and leaves your crab very tired and vulnerable. Be sure to watch them regularly to make sure they are safe.

Final Thoughts

The most important thing here is not to panic. Remain calm and react to the situation if necessary. If you own hermit crabs, this is very likely to happen at some point. Learning how to re-shell your crab will allow you to help them without causing harm or making the situation worse.

Remember, if they molt, don’t handle them directly. Just create a little sanctuary so they can do it themselves when it’s time.

Looking for more hermit crab readings? To attempt:

Selected image source: Tereshchenko Dmitry, Shutterstock

By Sara Caruso

Whether you’re a beginner or have years of experience caring for hermit crabs, here are some facts you might not know about these interesting little creatures.

1. The hermit crabs most commonly found in the pet trade are known as Crimson Pincers (Coenobita clypeatus). Native to the Caribbean, they are among the hardiest hermit species.

2. In the wild, purple pincers spend most of their time climbing and borrowing under trees.

3. Despite their name, hermit crabs live in large groups and are very social. That’s why it’s important to adopt three or more.

4. Hermit crabs communicate by chirping. Their soft, high-pitched chirping sounds like a small frog. Chirping can mean a territorial dispute or that the crab was startled.

5. Purple pincers have modified gills that allow them to breathe on land. The water stored in their shell creates moisture that allows for oxygen exchange.

6. Wild female hermit crabs can hold hundreds of eggs in their shell until they mature. When the eggs are ready to hatch, she goes to a tide pool or ocean and releases them.

7. Hermit crabs have distinct smells that can indicate their health. A healthy crab smells like maple syrup. A very slight smell of eggs could mean your crab is about to molt. If your crab smells like an old boot, it could mean the start of a bacterial infection.

8. Hermit crabs shed their exoskeleton to grow. The average crab molts once a year. Younger smaller crabs may molt several times a year, while larger older crabs over ten years old may molt as little as once in eighteen months.

9. In captivity, hermit crabs can live up to forty years if kept under the right conditions. In the wild, their lifespan is usually short. Much of a feral hermit’s survival depends on finding an empty shell of the right size to protect its soft body from predators. If the shell is too small, the hermit crab cannot retreat far enough into the shell to avoid being eaten. So hermits instinctively switch covers and look for the perfect fit.

10. Hermits also change their shell as they grow. Some hermits try on several shells before committing. When selecting new larger shells to offer to your hermit crabs, choose ones with an opening or opening that is slightly wider than the shell it is currently ingesting. The best time to offer new shells is around and during a full moon.

11. Humidity and temperature are vital for hermit crab survival. They thrive at temperatures between 70 and 76 degrees with 80% humidity. Monitor your crabs for signs of temperature stress, such as lethargy or drooping limbs.

12. Never use a sponge to wet a hermit crab enclosure. A damp or wet sponge is a breeding ground for bacteria that can be fatal to hermit crabs. Instead, use a spray bottle to lightly mist the crab enclosure with clean water twice a day. When nebulizing, hold the spray bottle about 30 cm above the case.

13. Since hermit crabs are nocturnal scavengers, they prefer to be fed at night. In the morning remove all

leftovers and replace their water.

14. Hermit crabs are scavengers by nature and like to pick at their food. Some of her favorite foods include boiled chicken on the bone, ribs, pork, fish, broccoli, apples, mangoes, unsalted nuts, corn on the cob, boiled egg served with chunks of broken eggshell and the occasional little fat pizza. (Yes. Seriously, eggshells and pizza.) Both are good sources of calcium. A pinch of sea salt should be added to the feed once a week.

15. Just before molting, your hermit crab may appear lethargic. No panic. Leave it alone for a few days and see what happens. After one molt, the crab is soft and weak. Offer him water and don’t touch him. A hermit crab’s new exoskeleton takes about seven days to harden. Hermit crabs eat their skinned exoskeleton to replenish important minerals and help their new exoskeleton grow.

16. It’s important to handle your hermit crabs so they get used to you. When you first interact with them, place the crabs on your fully flattened palm. Each crease can give the crabs something to hold on to, leading to accidental pinching. After becoming accustomed to handling, hermits tend to use their large claw less for grasping.

17. Hermit crabs do not transmit human diseases. As with any pet, washing your hands is important. Before interacting with your hermit crabs or their food, it is extremely important to wash your hands thoroughly to remove all traces of sunscreen or insect repellent.

18. Hermit crabs love to explore their surroundings indoors when supervised. LEGO® buildings, dollhouses and block obstacle courses are great exercise and enrichment. It’s fun to watch them explore.

19. Hermit crabs have tiny stiff hairs on their legs and chest that help them sense their surroundings. They will touch new food with their feelers to taste it and make sure it’s good to eat.

20. Hermit crabs like warm, dark places to hide. If you lose your crab in your house, check your shoes and under furniture.

Hermit crabs are fun and interesting pets that never cease to amaze. With the right care, your hermit crabs can live a long happy life.