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Hermit Crab — printable fact sheet
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Hermit Crab
Paguroidea
Hermit crabs are decapods that traded a hard abdomen for a soft, spirally curved one that fits inside an empty gastropod shell, held in place by a hooked tail and modified rear legs that grip the shell's inner column. Because they cannot make shells, the entire life of a hermit …
Did you know?
- Hermit crabs are not true crabs; their closest relatives are actually squat lobsters and porcelain crabs.
- Vacancy chains in hermit crabs were formally described using the same models economists use for job and housing markets, and the crabs will wait in an orderly size-ordered line beside an unsuitable shell for a better-fitting crab to arrive. Plastic litter is now a serious hazard: crabs mistake bottle caps and containers for shells, and hundreds of thousands have been recorded dying trapped inside debris on remote islands. The coconut crab, the world's largest land arthropod, is a hermit crab that abandoned the shell habit as an adult.
What I learned
Draw the hermit crab
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