HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was walking down a beach in Thailand and spotted two baby hermits.
Unfortunately, i didnt have a camera, so i checked out it's features.
It is completely white, with the large claw of an E, but aparently, according to the species finder, the eyestalks of a rugosis.
Does anyone know if this may be an infant stage, or a new hermit crab?

Hmm I think Straws are white when they are babies but I have no clue if that is what the crabs were.

i remember reading and seeing pics of straws as babies and being mostly white, so it could be baby straws. i'm not sure if they're usually in that area. see if you can get a picture if you go for a walk again we'd love to see a pic of them

Hmmm maybe you found a new spiecies of hermit crabs :D LOL... Ive never heard of a white HC

I caught two and keeping them in a fish tank i found, in this weather i can keep them outside most of the time, but heres a pic.

Are you sure they are not marine hermies?

They were thriving in the fish tank until i let them out, and i found them on the top of the beach and the marine hermies i found in the water looked fundamentally different.
Could be infant coconut crabs...

Awww! It could be a bitty baby straw! So cute!

what about variabilis?

Hard to tell from the picture exactly what species that little guy is. Thalia, I see where you are coming from on that ID....light color & long legged, makes him resemble a variabilis. I believe that C. variabilis are only found in Australia, but I could be wrong. Are you keeping him IN water? A land hermit crab will drown if left in water more than 30 minutes.

A sure way to tell if he is a marine hermit or a land hermit, is to check his pinchers. A land hermit has a noticeably larger big pincher, and a smaller feeder pincher. Most marine species have two pinchers very close in size. Marine hermits live mainly in the water, but it is common to see them running around the beach. You will rarely see a land hermit IN the ocean.....they are smart enough to know that they CAN drown, and choose to stay at a fair distance away from waves. The exception is when a fertile female going to the water to lay her eggs.

If he is a land hermit, then I would have to guess that he is a ruggie or a very young strawberry. I would guess ruggie, though.

since i think crazy crabs can only be found in australia, my bet is its a white rug. the pic is a bit blurry, but it resembles in many ways my white rug mayhem:




although its true that younger straws have a lot of white, i have definatly never seen one with no red at all, so i'm inclined to dismiss that it could be a straw.


Caroline

To answer your questions, they were kept in a mix of dry and wet sand, they had a water dish, but besides that, had no swimmable water.
I know it's hard to see in the pic, but the crabs had a bit of pink on the bottom of it's frontal legs, so i think it is a straw.

How intriguing!!

Maybe one way to find out is to have a close look at the crabs legs and pinchers and see if there are any tiny spots and what colour they are.