HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was watching my E and he seems to be either itching or cleaning his eyes lol. he will use one of his feelers and pull down his eye, almost like how a cat licks their paw and swipes it behind their ear to clean itself. but my E is doing that with his eyes! how strange. what is he doing this for?

My E's do that all the time as well. I think they are cleaning the sides of their eye stalks. I would imagine that they get sand and such on them, especially the way they dig!

That's my 2 cents...anybody else have thoughts?

Ahhh! Mine do that too!!! I've always wondered what they were doing.

Also, sometimes mine stand in place and do a little dance. They just pick up one leg and set it down, then pick up another and set it down. Sometimes it looks like they're itching their legs also. I wish I knew what they were up to when they do that stuff.

They are cleaning, these are pretty cleanly little guys, mine are constantly cleaning themselves. It's very cute when they clean their eyestalks, it looks like a cat cleaning their ears.

My Es do that A LOT of times! Mine have dug down though!

I love when they stamp their feet too.....they are just too cute!

I don't think I've ever seen mine stomp. But they clean their eyes and legs all the time.

I read that was also a way to establish "boss" mode (leg stomp) or maybe they are just dancing

It makes me laugh to see how clean my little crabbies keep themselves. They are always stomping sand off of them and cleaning their little eyes. Why is it that they are so clean, but they think it's fun to torture their "neat freak" mommy by destroying the tank at night!

Mine do the eye cleaning thing all the time and it's quite interesting that they use they mouth to do it.