Bury themselves...? Why?

crazycrabber · Post by **crazycrabber** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:04 am

welcome! unfortunately this is normal. pet stores do a poor job of taking care of their hermit crabs and not giving good enough conditions for molting, so by the time we get them they usual start molting. they molt or shed their exo underground and when they are doing this try not to disturb them. it can kill them. also for a few months they could have pps post purchase syndrome, so they could be calming down. or they could could just be digging for fun. they do love digging! don't handle them for a while.

Laurie LeAnn · Post by **Laurie LeAnn** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:20 pm

Just make sure your eco earth or play sand is the right conditions and you might see constant digging then stopping for a few days then starting up again, going up and down out of your substrate. This is also normal.They may do this several weeks then stop and be gone for a few months. Either molting or distressing

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:37 am

It is completely normal for hermitcrabs to burrow down regularly as they tend to spend a lot of their time in the wild in vast tunnel systems that they create underground, these tunnel systems can be a quarter mile wide and go nearly double that in length.They use this elaborate underground system to move from feeding zone to feeding zone in safety because they are easy meals for a wide variety of shore birds and other coastal animals.Hermitcrabs can move safely under cover in these tunnel networks during the day if they so choose which statistically speaking is around half of any local population even though these animals are nocturnal.Hermitcrabs are nocturnal for two reasons the lack of predatory animals at night and the cooler temps associated with the coastal night time, they have a much easier time moving on the open ground when the temps are a little cooler than they would be during the day and they also have the security of being able to forage for food without the possibility of being picked off from an overhead threat.The funny thing about a hermitcrab tunnel system is that they tend to be very escape oriented because the crab/s will purposefully make emergency exits every few yards so that they can surface freely at any given time in case they discover that a portion of the tunnel has collapsed due to weather or tidal action, this behavior is mimicked in the captive hermitcrabs tunnels there will be on average at least three exits that the crab can utilize at any given time.Hermitcrabs will also bury down if the climate conditions are not favorable on the surface because they can very easily create little micro climates underground where the conditions will be highly controllable by them and very favorable.Hermitcrabs will burrow down to molt, de-stress and even just for fun.The statistics are that one out of every two hermitcrabs even of mixed species will prefer the surface life while the other will stay underground for the majority of its life.

Zeblonite · Post by **Zeblonite** » Mon Aug 25, 2014 3:52 pm

That was really interesting to learn crabber85. Thanks for sharing! My son loves those kinds of facts.