HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Does anybody know what the crush force of PPs is? If no one knows, how might we go about measuring this?

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Haha! Why don't you do a little experiment and get back to us!

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Honestly I would love to but I dont know how!

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ROSIEonFIRE wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:10 pm

Honestly I would love to but I dont know how!

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I think what Maddamay is alluding to is have your crab pinch you. I'm sure it's a joke. Lol

Omg lol my biggest crab nearly got me the other day when I was trying to measure his current shell which is how I started wondering!

I actually was trying to figure out how crush force is usually measured because I'd really like to do this. Dentists use like, an electric plate to measure people's bite force, maybe I can bring my crabs to the dentist lol

@aussie JJ Dude , u took biology in school right? Any ideas?

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You’re going to need specialized equipment to measure bite force. They are often used in dentistry, but I’d be surprised if a dentist let you stick their sensory transducers in a hermit crab claw!

Give this a read, which details the measurement of pinching force in coconut crabs: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... 66108-g001


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Looks like they used a bite force thing. There has GOT to be a relatively simple way we can measure this. Maybe if we get some sticks or something that we know the tensile strength of, and we see what pieces they can snap, that might work? I'm also wondering if we could rig something mechanical that the crab could pinch. I dont know, I'm reaching back to like my middle school science classes here lol

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JoeHermits wrote:You’re going to need specialized equipment to measure bite force. They are often used in dentistry, but I’d be surprised if a dentist let you stick their sensory transducers in a hermit crab claw!

Give this a read, which details the measurement of pinching force in coconut crabs: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... 66108-g001


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I was thinking along the same lines.

Even then, what age are we referring to? Smaller crabs have such a small pinch force, that it doesnt hurt as much as the larger ones - which does/will draw blood.

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I think I'm curious about what the maximum CF is. I know I wont really find it but I'd love to know how much force my biggest crabs can exert. It would be cool if we could figure out how to do this, maybe we could all test our crabs and write a paper?

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Hermiesguardian wrote: I think what Maddamay is alluding to is have your crab pinch you. I'm sure it's a joke. Lol

Lol something like that!

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ROSIEonFIRE wrote:Looks like they used a bite force thing. There has GOT to be a relatively simple way we can measure this. Maybe if we get some sticks or something that we know the tensile strength of, and we see what pieces they can snap, that might work? I'm also wondering if we could rig something mechanical that the crab could pinch. I dont know, I'm reaching back to like my middle school science classes here lol

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I was thinking the twig thing too. But I've never seen or noticed my crabs using their claws to crush anything, well besides food. Unless somebody tries poking them with the sticks and baiting them to snap it. But I'm not gonna do that lol

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Maddamay32 wrote:I was thinking the twig thing too. But I've never seen or noticed my crabs using their claws to crush anything, well besides food. Unless somebody tries poking them with the sticks and baiting them to snap it. But I'm not gonna do that lol

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You don’t need to poke them. They’ll reflexively grab anything you place inside their claws.


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Yeah what started me thinking about this is I was trying to measure my crabs shell the other day with a measuring tape and he grabbed the silver tab at the end and was hanging on for dear life! Anything you place in the vicinity of their big claw they'll pinch in my experience!

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