What age do you think most pet store cabs are?

[Shadowdive]

So i have realized today. That my four rescue pet store crabs have been with me for ruffly 6 years. However, I do not know what age they were when I obtained them. They were what petco calls a small crab at time of rescue. Does anyone know what age that would most likely make them? I know in the early days they molt and grow fairly quickly. Then slow down in later years. With molts taking months at a time.

Any answer is most welcome on this. Since I have puzzled over it for years and the interweb is all but useless.

[aussieJJDude]

Basing it on captive bred hermies:
- micro <1 year
- teeny 2-4 years
- small 3-7 (estimated)
- medium 6-10 (estimated)
-large 9-18 (estimated)
- jumbo >15 (estimated)

But of course, size is an arbitrary unit for age, as it depends on the number of moults in a given period of time... That and hermit crabs "grow" at different rates. My sizes - besides the micro/teeny, since curlz captive breed took around 1.5-2 year to reach the size of a micro/teeny - are simply speculations from having teenies and watching them grow to a med/large. Then the large/jumbo comes from others care and duration of the growth of their crabs.

[Shadowdive]

That still helps. I can say that the most ruff estimate for all of them is most likely 8-10 only the largest Landon is most likely older at 10-12. Ruffly, anyway and I could be lowballing it. Landon changed shells and molted almost the day I brought him to the crabitat.

Which means that they have already outlived most rodents and some normal house pets.

[aussieJJDude]

Well, its commonly quoted - never really seen evidence however - that hermit crabs can live up to 50 years old. The longest we have had in captivity is roughly around 38(?) that we know of, so its probably true that they do have a long lifespan.