HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi! Sorry for the bother, but I'm just the kind of person who likes to see connections and be able to know how everything fits together. Would someone be able to explain how Chitin fits into Kilimanjoaro's (amazing) guide as far as whether it is one of the nutrients or food groups or something else? Thanks in advance!!

Chitin is a form of protein that is part of the exoskeleton. Chitin-rich foods such as insect exos aren’t nutritionally dense on their own (assuming they’re even bioavailable) so l’ve always considered it an “other” on the pyramid.


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Awesome, thanks!

bump!

I was just wondering: is chitin a vital nutrient that I need to be providing on a regular basis?
It seems to me that its main purpose is to aid in the hardening of the exoskeleton, but they ought to receive it when they eat their exo after molting?

Not really. Chitin is made of proteins and can be produced by hermits from other foods. It’s not something I would consider a necessity.


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It's also going to be part of a lot of commonly fed hermit foods, pretty much any dried insect or seafood is going to have some.

In terms of being able to produce protein, such as chitin, the key thing is not to be deficient in any of the amino acids that the protein is built out of. In general, proteins are fully broken down to individual amino acids (or sometimes, groups of 2 or 3 a.a.'s) before being absorbed. I would expect that if arthropods are supplied in the diet (mealworms, bloodworms, shrimps, etc.), the chitin they contain in their exoskeleton would be a good source to ensure balanced supply of the a.a.'s needed for crabs to use in making their own chitin.