Hermit crabs use abandoned molluse shells as homes. This crab’s abdomen is soft, so the extra shell is for protection. When the crab grows it simply finds a bigger shell to live in.
Hermit crabs vary in their mating habits. The Caribbean hermit crab, for example, lives in wetlands, but when it’s time to mate, will head for the seashore in huge masses.
Amid the chaos, males and females find each other, coming partly out of their shells so the male can transfer a sperm packet to the female, which fertilizes her eggs. She later carries her eggs to the water’s edge, where contact with seawater causes the eggs to burst and the larvae to float away.
Hermit crabs don’t breed well in captivity, and so the numerous land hermit crabs seen in pet stores and tourist shops are taken from the wild, which is considered an unsustainable practice.
Plastic pollution is also a problem for hermit crabs, which often mistake a plastic bottle cap or container for a new home. A 2020 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials found that around 570,000 hermit crabs die annually from getting caught in plastic debris on two tropical islands in the South Pacific.
When these trapped crabs die, they release a pheromone signal to other crabs that there may be a shell available, which lures even more crabs into a death trap.
Credit : National Geographic
Picture Credit : Google
