HCA: Hermit Crab Association

My friend have a Indos move to Turbo petholatus 2 months ago, then his body colour change to brown. (original colour is light purple)

But she did not molt within these 2 months.

Do you have this experience?

Maybe it's just the color of the shell accents different tones in the crabs coloring?

tonycoenobita wrote:My friend have a Indos move to Turbo petholatus 2 months ago, then his body colour change to brown. (original colour is light purple)

But she did not molt within these 2 months.

Do you have this experience?

Could he have molted shortly before the change and the hardening of the exo produced the color change? I've had my crabs do this where they molt, and then over the next month their color changes (usually darker). Very interesting

I've noticed some scary good matching by some of my PPs to the shells they've chosen. Either it's complete coincidence, or they molt into a shade that matches. (Which I think is highly unlikely given that the majority of crabs choose not to match their shells.)

I've also had them choose shells at random that were perfect matches. My favorite was this one:


Hermits are not able to change the color of their exo unless they molt. Their exoskeletons are too thick for any kind of color changing process (hemolymph flow, chromatophores) beneath the shell to show through, and their shell is completely inert so would be unable to change color by any other process. They can dull or go ashy from time and wear, but anything drastic requires them to create a new exoskeleton.