HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I used to have a tower thing in my crabitat. It's like a rectangular resin tower with an open bottom and lots of openings on all sides, like swiss cheese. Originally, Calypso could wiggle through these openings with abandon, but then somecrabby upgraded shells and didn't get the "FYI You are bigger now" memo. The shell was stuck! If my memory serves me correctly I think Calypso even had a nudie moment of turning around and trying to finagle it out. I couldn't intervene to free it for fear of harming Calypso, so I set an empty shell inside the tower. Calypso got in the other shell and then immediately proceeded to free the original shell and get back into it! I was very impressed by this bit of crabby problem-solving and resolve. Another funny thing was that I had the tower on its side so Calypso could have just walked in/out the "bottom" but no, the shortest route to the food dish must be taken! Either that or it was more fun to wiggle through the openings...

That is kind of funny.

Sent from my LGL157BL using Tapatalk

They are surprisingly smart, aren’t they? And tenacious for sure. That is really funny that she got it stuck like that though! I though little Patrick was going to pull a similar naked move, but I was worried bc he was trying to push through a hole and would’ve been naked to either cling or fall....but he figured out to back up. Wow it had to be a little bit of an omg moment finding Calypso out like that!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Overmountain1 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:21 am

They are surprisingly smart, aren’t they? And tenacious for sure. That is really funny that she got it stuck like that though! I though little Patrick was going to pull a similar naked move, but I was worried bc he was trying to push through a hole and would’ve been naked to either cling or fall....but he figured out to back up. Wow it had to be a little bit of an omg moment finding Calypso out like that!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They definitely take their shells and climbing very seriously! Calypso also almost escaped one time, by climbing up a strip of plastic wrap (I had put it around the lid to hold in moisture). When I got home Calypso had pushed up the lid in the corner, and one little leg was pushed through to the outside lip of the tank. LOL

I saw that pic a couple days ago- so funny! I’m sure Calypso was thinking up a way to skip through there- “hmm.... now for the rest of me...” ha! Love it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i have the exact climbing branch

purplepincher wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:41 am

i have the exact climbing branch

Yeah I still have it but removed it because I wanted a more natural looking crabitat, plus Calypso kept getting stuck. Although I'm thinking that, if I get a new friend or two for Calypso, who are smaller crabs, it might be a nice refuge for them to hide away from the larger crab.