Do crabs display dominance or...

[bikepartjewelry]

is it me adding my own thoughts to their behavior?

Lemon and Mega-Claw have been communing all afternoon. Now Lemon is standing above MC on the cocohut looking down at him in the sand. They have engaged in many feeler fights/parties today as well.

I'm just curious what, if anything, is going on.

[Fateless]

Yes, they do, a lot sometimes. To show dominance they might flick, or crawl on other crabs shells and sit on them.
I'm not sure if what your crabs are doing is dominating, they could just be becoming good friends.

[Kilimanjaro]

Territorial displays and dominance are very common in the crabitat, and in the wild! They have a sort of hierarchy system.

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[tnt4eva]

Some crabs are very dominant. There is a clear pecking order in my tank, and the only ones that are exempt are the teenies.

Termite is the alpha male and beats up all new additions until they cower in submission. He likes to throw his weight around. I once saw a small change shells in front of him and Termite grabbed the small's old shell and wouldn't give it back. The small looked ready to cry lol. But he is very gentle with the teenies. If they get in his way, he walks behind them really slowly until he can get past, whereas he runs over everyone else like a steam train.

Spider is the biggest crab, but he's at the bottom of the pecking order. He digs big burrows and even the smalls will push him out them so they can take them for themselves.

[wodesorel]

The only time mine get into it is when there's something tasty, and then whoever is bigger, stronger, and faster wins!