HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I adopted this little guy today and I'm wondering if he might be blind. His eyes are completely pale and he doesn't flinch or go back in his shell when I make a sudden movement towards him at all. He looks to be recently molted...his exo is shiny and he has all of his sharp black toenails and some eyelashes. I know they get darker as the get older but I've never seen eyes quite like this.

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Yeah, I’d say you’ve a blind hermit crab. I know eyestalks can be regenerated but I don’t know if this one can restore its vision. Truthfully I don’t know enough for a good speculation.


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Aw, poor thing! I'm glad he's with you now.

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Eyes are complex structures, so even when they are able to fully or partially regrow them, I've always thought they don't come back with the level of vision the crab was born with. He should get to the point where he can sense shadows and high-contrast movement (think wearing dark clothes against a light wall), but it also shouldn't affect him any in captivity to be visually disabled. He'll find food, molt, explore, change shells. He just wouldn't be able to protect himself from predators in the wild like birds because he wouldn't be able to see them coming. Expect any repairs to happen slowly over many molts. They can reform an entire limb in a single go, but repairing existing structures that have damage is more difficult for them and eyes are the hardest.

Precious lil thing


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HES FORTUNATE TO HAVE YOU.


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He was one of four I adopted yesterday.
I noticed him in the carrier run for the biggest crab and 'hide' under her legs at different times. I thought the behavior was odd enough to take a closer look as soon as we got home. Not sure if he can tell light from dark or if he can sense the temp changes.

He did get a bit lost in place last night. He was trying to make his way off of an egg crate platform and kept turning circles and running into the wall. Lol! I'm sure he'd have figured it out eventually but I intervened.

Now I need a good name for my visually impaired friend. It was Helen, until I noticed she was a he, then Stevie Wonder. I also have my big purple friend with the purple antennae named Prince after "the artist formerly known as..." (my husband's idea. I wanted to call him Vinny because he looked like he fell into a bottle of wine.) I'm not exactly a music aficionado, but it was the 1st thing I thought of.

Thanks for all the input. I really appreciate it!

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Aw, he is definitely lucky to have you. One of my crabs, Artemis, only has one eye that she can see out of. She has really good reflexes, but it looks like she might have lost an eye in a fight sometime before we adopted her. She’s molted since we got her and hasn’t really grown anything back yet (her blind eye has just begun to heal over properly though, which I’m happy about). Your new baby looks really sweet, I hope that he thrives with you!