What do you know about Hermit Crabs and their stolen homes?
Posted By RichC on March 7, 2025
Brenda and I were debating crabs and shells after seeing a couple crabs on our beach walks and finding a beautifully polished Cowry/Cowrie shell (left).
I suspected that the hermit crab ate the snail forming the shell and used it for protection and “a home.” Of course I was wrong … but didn’t know it until AI sleuthing. Not being satisfied with the “text only” (below) … I fed the results into ElevenLabs for some audio.
ElevenLabs AI reading Grok AI information – text below break
Hermit crabs don’t typically eat snails to take over their shells. They’re scavengers, not predators in that sense. They might munch on a snail if it’s already dead—hermit crabs aren’t picky about a free meal, and carrion’s fair game. But they don’t go around hunting live snails just to snag their shells.
What happens more often is that hermit crabs find empty snail shells and move in. As they grow, they need bigger shells, so they’re always on the lookout for vacated ones. Sometimes they’ll even “trade up” if they spot a better shell, like one another hermit crab’s already using, but that’s more about opportunism than attacking snails. Snails, meanwhile, build their own shells, so it’s not like hermit crabs are waiting for them to die to steal a custom home—it’s just a matter of finding what’s already abandoned. Nature’s little housing market, really.
Add Edit: Also a nice looking yacht cruising by relatively close to shore.
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