HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Pavlov's dog has nothing on my crabs. Just mist the tank and watch them come running to the food dish.

Who says you can't train a crab? Pavlov would be proud!

I've actually been wondering about this for a while. Like, how are hermit crabs hearing? Can they be conditioned, to like, run when they hear the spray bottle?

Their ability to smell improves with humidity. Mine also make a run for the food when the foggers are on. I've never been quite sure if it's learned behaviour or a boost to the scents in the tank.

I watched a video about hearing where sombody put their cell phone in the crabitat , waited for the crabbies to come investigate it, and called it. It rang and rang and the crabbies seemed unperturbed. They just kept right on trying to eat it.

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They do start coming to where I put out the new food even before I put out the new food. It's got to be they associate the fact that first the tank gets sprayed then new food gets put out. Used to be only Brutus (the pig of the group) would start running for the food dish as I mist in the PM. He now has many buddies and they are all making a mad dash to looking to be the first one to find the new food dish.

me n my hermikids wrote:I watched a video about hearing where sombody put their cell phone in the crabitat , waited for the crabbies to come investigate it, and called it. It rang and rang and the crabbies seemed unperturbed. They just kept right on trying to eat it.

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I also saw this video. Are you talking about the one by Caroline beilak?

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I am not sure of her name

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I suppose you could train any animal using behaviorism. I mean, you'll never get them to perform circus acts, but any animal uses learning to some degree. After all, HCs do learn that we mean no harm and they get used to us. I used to be a animal trainer and I read a book on positive reinforcement training by Karen Pryor, and she was a trainer at Sea World in HI and she said she trained something (I can't remember if it was a starfish, or a clam, or something) to come to the top of the aquarium. I may be a little off on that (the animal or the behavior)-but my point is that an animal doesn't have to have higher cognitive function like a dog does for conditioning to work. It would be a very interesting experiment to see if someone could train a crab to do a specific behavior on cue. But wodesorel is right that with the food thing you can't rule out that they didn't come because they smelled the food.

One of the members here did an experiment with their hearing. https://youtu.be/pbOC6RGkDeA

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Thanks for the link! I did some research on this, and found out that apparently they do not hear like humans, but instead "hear" via vibrations in the air or surrounding water.