HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Through my research I've learned that crabs mostly do their chirping when fighting over a shell or some other crabby disagreement. Today my boyfriend and I were having an argument not far from the cage. We weren't screaming at each other, there was hardly any voice raising. But we were arguing. Our argument was broken up by what I'm positive was one of my crabs chirping. As the crabs are mine and I've done all the research, he wasn't aware that they chirp and he instantly knew it was them. We stopped our argument to look in on the crabs. Neither of them were moving, both seem quite comfy in the holes they'd dug. Do you think our arguing disturbed them? Can they sense things like that? I know cats and dogs can.

It was almost humorous as people call the crabs our kids. My mom will ask me "How are my grancrabs?" And I couldn't help but think "that's what we get for arguing in front of the kids!"

When I had all glass aquariums, I would hear chirping and immediately investigate what was going on, ninety percent of the time it was a crab scratching up against the glass :-/
I've had crabs chirp when in distress, and also just for no apparent reason. I'm not entirely sure when/why they do chirp.

Well I know I can cut out the scratching on glass. They weren't moving lol

Same thing happened to me today. It's happened a few times, actually. Sometimes they just chirp for no reason at all

It was quite fun to hear, that's for sure.

What kind of crabs do you have? I've read a hermie book that Ruggies, which they referred to as the Crying Land Hermit Crab, have a ridge on there third leg that makes a crying sound when they rub it against their shell. Maybe your crabs, if you don't have Ruggies, are grooming themselves inside their shells and being very noisy.

There are different kind of chirps to! There's one that sounds like a scream that they use when theyre really scared or in pain. Although B "screams" almost every time I walk by the tank, when he eas being attacked he also used the same chirp (nudge was repeatedly attacking him, I had to seperate them). But alot of chirping is just for things like "I saw something" "this is my food/shell" "what the heck are you doing to me put me down" (<-- Es especially do this one) the low croaking one doesn't really seem to mean anything bad (from what I've seen) usually when my crabs croak it's because they're eating.

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure mine are PPs.

My PPs chirp all the time--I hear chirping at least once a day. I've only had one shell fight in two years so I don't think it's aggression related. I just think some crabs are talkative!