Best of Mike #127

We often see Hermit Crabs when we dive.... usually, as they scurry away or retreat into their shells.

This particular one was large enough and brave enough.... that I was able to get a great pixture of the inhabitant.

Who knew they have blue eyes?

Checkout Wikipedia for a great pixture of a hermit crab without it's shell.

Here is an abridged version of the description that Wikipedia provides for the whole name and shell swapping thing that hermit crabs are known for.

Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike most crabs. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell. Most frequently hermit crabs use the shells of sea snails. The tip of the hermit crab's abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the inside of the shell.^[5]

As the hermit crab grows in size, it has to find a larger shell and abandon the previous one. This habit of living in a second hand shell gives rise to the popular name "hermit crab". Several hermit crab species, use "vacancy chains" to find new shells: when a new, bigger shell becomes available, hermit crabs gather around it and form a kind of queue from largest to smallest. When the largest crab moves into the new shell, the second biggest crab moves into the newly vacated shell, thereby making its previous shell available to the third crab, and so on.