HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I have 3 hermit crabs, Dweeble, Dwable and the newsest one Dwible. Dweeble was a birthday present, and Iwent out and got Dwable a little while later. I picked Dwible a week later while getting some suppiles from Petsmart. He's smaller than my other 2, and I picked him because he was being bullied in the petsmart tank by a much larger crab. The poor thing ran away under a log, only to have that larger one start rocking the log back and forth, trying to get it I assume.

So I washed him (he was very filthy), and eventually introduced him to the others. Dwible loves to dig holes, and when he retreats into his shell, he'll fall onto his back everytime.

Dweeble is the one in charge, and Dwable seems to be his 2nd in command, so to speak. Dwilbe does his own thing away from them for the most part, but there have been a few times I see them all climbing together. Now one day Dwible got wet from his water dish and had some sand clinging to him. When he saw me, he did his hide in shell, falling backwars onto his back. Then Dweeble walks over and grabs at Dwible. My 1st reaction was there was going to be a fight, but then Dweeble begins picking each piece of sand from Dwilbe's shell and big claw. Has anyone seen this before? Is it some kind of friendly behavior, or is there something wrong that I just don't understand? I don't want to assume this is good or cute behavior.

That's so cute!! I have never seen that before, nor do I know what it is all about. Did Dweeble put the sand in his mouth? One possibility is that Dweeble was thirsty, and smelled or otherwise sensed that Dwible was wet, and was eating the wet sand off of Dwible. Sometimes my lazy crabs will eat wet sand or drink off leaves rather than venture to the water dishes.

I've never seen that specifically, but I have seen other friendly behavior like that. Two of my crabs were eating, when I walked by the tank. One of them could care less about my presence, while the other one immediately closed up into his shell. After about 30 seconds of the not scared one continuing to eat and the scared one staying in his shell, the not scared one walked over and reached one of his legs out to just gently touched the scared crab, as if it say "it's okay, come out and eat!" The scared crab immediately came out of his shell and walked back over the the food with the first crab, and they sat together and ate happily. It was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen them do
Hermit crab communication is so much more complex and fascinating than even we (as hermit crab fanatics) can imagine!

I had one episode recently of one crab sharing his exo with a crab that had been out of the crabitat for twenty days. ( I won't retell the story here but it really did happen) This was the first time i saw two crabs that seemed to be buddies.