HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Has anyone noticed that their crabs seem to learning? I have at least one strawberry that appears to have learned what a food dish is. If I miss a feeding, it will come and sit in the food dish, even if there is no food left in the dish. I have also done a little experimentation and moved the dish around, and it will still show the same behavior. Very interesting behavior for such a "simple" creature.

Yes, they seem to have a small memory.

It could also just like the dish.

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I mean I can see it "learning" in a sense. But by learning I mean due to positive reinforcement it might possibly associate the dish with food. But what Soilentgringa said is possible as well. Crabs are odd.

soilentgringa wrote:It could also just like the dish.

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That thought occurred to me too. Or it might possibly smell some residual orders lingering on the plastic. At some point I think I might introduce other dishes and see how they react.

My crabs had figured out where food was and would always check that dish for stuff. Recently, when I changed their food dish to a larger one and used the old one to hold a little bit of extra salt water(don’t ask me why I did this, I honestly don’t know.) they kept sitting in that smaller one at night, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of the salt water. :D

AwesomeHermit wrote:Yes, they seem to have a small memory.

Something that I actually fing really interesting is that hermit crabs actually have a pretty good memory that seems to be able to last for at least about a week, as far as pain goes at least

Here is a link to an article about it
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 072759.htm

Also, my medium crab once crawled through a very small opening at the top of my hermies’ tank, but his shell had fallen off and when ever he moved, his poor body was just scraping across the floor, and when my dad got him back in the tank by letting him crawl into a cup, he went into a different shell than the one he was in when he escaped. He avoided the shell he was wearing when he escaped naked for several days after.

They certainly can learn to an extent. Back when I first introduced a hamster wheel to my tank none of my crabs went near it. I finally popped a crab in the wheel myself; once one crab figured out what the wheel did, the others soon followed.
My crabs have also learned that when the wheel is off center they can't use it well. So whenever the wheel is off center they don't even bother to use it.