HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Little Boy FINALLY surfaced after waving to me through his window for nearly a month and a half, and I noticed that something was wrong. Though he's taken on beautiful, bright colors, his BP appears to have been fused shut. He doesn't open it, and the exo is white around the "inside" where he used to grip. Has this ever happened to anyone before? Why would this occur?

He's pretty healthy and active otherwise. His feelers are bouncing rapidly, and he's even looking at shells right now. He hasn't eaten yet from what I can see, but I'm sure he'll attack the honey dish soon.

Congrats on the molt! It could be that he got his BP stuck in the exo. If it is fused, he will still be able to eat & drink using his LP & legs. Unbelievably, they seem to function just fine with a deformed or missing BP.

All right, thank you. I wasn't terribly worried, but I always like to be sure. These guys never fail to amaze me! He seems absolutely fascinated with Kloggers's old pica shell...not too great of a change from his current pica shell, but I'm glad to see that he's well enough to be shell shopping. His feelers are going nuts, too...he must be pretty happy to be up and about again. I should be doing econ homework, but I wanna watch this guy change...

If the BP bothers him enough, he will most likely drop it. I wouldn't be overly concerned if this happens. I only worry about newbies dropping limbs, which is a sign of stress.

I have a small PP that came up from molting last year, minus his BP. He got along just fine, and acted like he didn't even miss it. He regrew it with his next molt, but it was much smaller than it should have been, and was a strange orange color. The 2nd consecutive molt, he regrew it to normal size & color.