Land Hermit Crab Behaviour

Contrary to popular belief land hermit crabs are sociable and fascinating creatures! They each have their own distinct personality, likes and dislikes and make for unusual, interesting pets.

Hermit crabs in the wild live in huge colonies, and thrive in social communities within the colony; hence as pets they should not be kept individually.

We find from experience that within crabitats they frequently reproduce this natural behaviour by breaking off into "family" groups choosing to spend time in smaller groups at times and at others joining as a unit to bathe, explore and eat.

They tend to be more active during the evenings and night, and love exploring climbing and generally vandalising your once aesthetically pleasing crabitat to suit their own sense of style! Keep hermies happy by giving them lots of things to climb and explore, with plenty of places to rest and hide, changing things round every now and then also helps prevent boredom!.

Be prepared, if your crabitat is in your bedroom you may be woken by the noise!

Hermies tend to sleep mostly during the day, often they will be hanging out their shells a little and look, well, relaxed, if they do not recoil into their shell when you pass its likely they are dozing!!

Bear in mind Hermies wear their shells for protection and your shadow passing above them may seem like a bird of prey is swooping in to eat them, it takes a gentle approach and a little time for them to realise they are not on the menu and to trust you enough to stay visible!

At times you may notice your crabs pushing and shoving each other, this is natural behaviour and may be a form of greeting or communication, very occasionally you may witness a fight (usually due to one crab fancying the shell another is in) often this is resolved by the crabs themselves and does not usually require intervention. (One way to prevent shell fights is to ensure there are enough spare shells in the tank to suit everybody, frequently quoted ratios are 3 spares to 1 hermie!)

Hermies also "chirp" I haven't heard mine do it as yet but its thought again to be a form of communication, some information reports this as a method of expressing anger or distress, others as a social interaction, I would suggest if you hear it to observe them, check the conditions within the crabitat if they are not ideal take restorative action, if the conditions are good, see if you can work out what is going on as no one really knows!!!!

There are few known diseases that afflict hermies, most malaise results from poor environmental conditions, poor diet and lack of salt water supplies.

Improving your crabitat conditions, TLC and patience are often all that is required to restore health and vitality to the individual.

There have been reports of people disposing of "dead" hermies when in fact they were probably very much alive, just moulting, so caution is required if you suspect one of you crabs has passed.

Sadly sometimes the conditions in which they were kept prior to becoming your pet may have been far from ideal and may have stressed the crab to the point of no recovery. When a crab has passed, there is a very distinctive odour; I have likened it to the smell of a fish market on a hot and muggy day, if this smell is not present there is a good chance your crab is not dead.

If you observe a crab isolating itself from the group, appearing a bit lethargic, possibly taking on a lot of food and water and especially if it appears to have less vivid, paler or ashen coloured legs then its possible your little chap is preparing to moult, for further information regarding moulting please refer to the moulting section of this site)

Material by Dee
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