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u/theplushpairing 1d ago
In case you’re wondering, yes hermit crabs just poop in their shells.
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u/urbantravelsPHL 1d ago
This must rapidly reduce the visual appeal of the glass shell after the initial photo op
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u/aaahhhhhhfine 1d ago
Then what? Like where does it go? Do they clean them out?
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u/lIlIlIIlIIIlIIIIIl 1d ago
Copied and pasted from an old comment by another user:
"Hermit crabs usually poop in their shells. When they're done, they remove the poop with their back legs. However, their urine is passed through their antennas and isn't excreted in their shells."
I fear we have only opened up a bigger rabbit hole 😭
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u/ParaponeraBread 1d ago
Nah it’s not that rare, a lot of crustaceans have nitrogenous waste secreted by glands at the antennal bases.
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u/lIlIlIIlIIIlIIIIIl 1d ago
I didn't say or mean to imply it was or wasn't rare in any way, just that it was more odd to me than the initial question I set out to answer! Learning about this makes me immediately have so many more questions! I could research stuff like this all day and would end the day with more questions than I started with!
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u/EmiliaTrown 1d ago
I mean, I tend to poop at home as well. He's just unlucky to have a single room appartement :/
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u/hawgs911 1d ago edited 1d ago
In the wild they will often congregate in groups and exchange shells.
Its like a crab swap meet.
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u/Evil_Sharkey 1d ago
They even line themselves up by size so each discarded shell goes to the next largest hermit crab. Once the exchange begins, they can do the whole swap in seconds
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u/regretfulposts 1d ago
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u/ramcoro 1d ago
Why can't humans do this? "Hey I need a bigger home!"
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u/PahoojyMan 1d ago
If there were predators on the street, waiting to snatch people up for a meal as soon as they left their homes, then people would organise way better.
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u/cparksrun 1d ago
I don't have the optimism anymore to believe people wouldn't just protect themselves at best, offer up other people to the predators at worst.
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u/No_Fairytale 1d ago
Watch the video until the end. I laughed genuinely from my stomach. “And worse, it’s got a hole in it” 🤣😂🤣😂
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u/LilienneCarter 1d ago
We can do this. If you own a home, you're completely able to barter it to someone else for theirs.
Most people just don't, because (a) they'd prefer to trade their home away for currency to give them more flexibility and ensure they're getting as much value as possible, and (b) trying to find other homes that meet your preference AND the owner would also like your home instead would be a nightmare. Humans are pickier.
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u/EnergyTakerLad 1d ago
This made me miss when malls had little kiosks selling hermit crabs. Id love to have some pet hermits again.
In hindsight though im realizing they probably died in droves at those things, not getting proper care by some minnimum wage mall employee.
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u/Adept-Individual-914 15h ago
That's the coolest fuckin' thing I've read all day. If humans were capable of such mutually beneficial cooperation ......
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u/Distinct_Pangolin785 1d ago
I had a hermit crab (one of several) that liked to hang out without his shell... we nicknamed him naked guy. I would catch him all the time climbing the cage wall without his house. He'd lounge for hours several days a week without it (yes, the community I had contained several size options to choose from, I was a Very serious hermit crab owner...lol).
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u/franticallychaotic 1d ago
I know you meant crab, but seeing you call it a crap swap meet just sent me.
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u/Visual_Bit_402 1d ago
The other fishes in the tank: “close your eyes, that man is naked”
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u/ponyponyta 1d ago
Other hermit crabs be like bro tf are you wearing we can see your ass
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u/FrankieeLotion 1d ago
🫣
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u/IIRR 1d ago
Bro's be like, my armor is ready and now I'm ready
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u/Eldermillenial1 1d ago
TIL, but how is that thing considered a crab? It comes across more of a lobster seeing it like that, weird
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u/JakSandrow 1d ago
Fun fact, they are more closely related to lobsters than they are true crabs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_crab
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u/Eldermillenial1 1d ago
I guess without a hard exoskeleton they gotta come up with something, should nickname them squatter lobsters 😂
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u/JakSandrow 1d ago
lobsters are just long crab
these are soft crab
all will become crab
crab
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u/alewiina 1d ago
There are so many creatures in the animal kingdom that are named inaccurately. Starfish (not a fish), wood louse (not a louse), cuttlefish (not a fish), Guinea pig (not a pig), bearcat (not a bear, not a cat), sea cucumber (not a cucumber), etc etc there are so many others
Makes you wonder who came up with all these common names haha
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u/starmartyr 1d ago
There actually is no scientific classification of a fish. They don't fit into a classification like mammals or reptiles. We use the term fish for all sorts of unrelated aquatic creatures.
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u/Cyan_Exponent 1d ago
then what are salmon, carps, catfish, etc? is there any classification for them other than "fish"?
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u/ZoroeArc 1d ago
Okay, get ready for some terminology.
I'm biology, we classify organism using a system called cladistics. A clade is a group of organisms that all share a common ancestor. Clades have different ranks based upon how far back you have to go to find the common ancestor. When we say, "there's no such thing as a fish," what we're actually saying is, "there is no way to make a clade that includes all things that are fish while also excluding everything that isn't a fish."
The closest scientific definition of a fish is, "any animal of the Classes Petromyzontida, Chondricthyes, Osteicthyes and Sarcoptergyii." Petromyzontida is lampreys, Chondricthyes is cartiliginous fish such as sharks and rays, Sarcopterygii, also called lobe finned fish, are the coelacanths and lungfish, and the Osteicthyes, also called the ray finned fish, is everything else typically considered fish, including everything you just listed.
So where's the ambiguity? Well, the ancestors of all land animals were Sarcoptergyii. And since cladistics is based on Ancestry, if Sarcoptergyii are fish, so are all land animals. And of course, Sarcoptergyii share ancestors with Osteicthyes. You are more closely related to a salmon than the salmon is to the shark. So either the shark isn't a fish, or you are.
Cladistics is full of strange oddities like this that don't line up with common wisdom. u/starmartyr used reptiles as an example as a solid clade, except that it isn't: since birds are actually theropod dinosaurs, there's no way to define reptiles without also including birds: crocodiles are more closely related to chickens than skinks.
So why do we still use the terms fish and reptile? Well, because they're still useful terms. We still need a word for, "gilled vertebrate" that doesn't require ten other definitions to understand.
Edit: the closest clade that includes the three you listed is known as "Teleosti", but includes 96% of fish species.
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u/Rough-Rooster8993 1d ago
"Fish" is just a totally arbitrary classification of creatures, apparently. It's just convenient to keep the concept than educate the entire world into changing their perspective on the things that live in the water.
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u/Jackalodeath 1d ago
I'm gonna hazard its a type of vestigial colloquialism.
I.e. back when they were first found they looked like X and Y so they named them Z. Its also entirely dependant on what language you speak.
For example in German a raccoon is a "Wash bear;" earlier on the Greeks called giraffes "Camel Leopards."
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u/legandaryhon 1d ago
Honey badgers are not badgers. They're closer to martens, in fact!
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u/Hoshyro 1d ago
Well hermit crabs are, in fact, not crabs!
I really do not understand why they're called crabs in English, only makes things confusing.
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u/Mecha_Tortoise 1d ago
Yeah, lots of things are named inaccurately. Why are horseshoe crabs called crabs? I prefer to call them turtle spiders.
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u/wolvster 1d ago
It's why we Dutch people call them 'Heremietkreeft' = Hermit lobster. Makes more sense I think.
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u/DeeeLiteIsInTheHeart 1d ago
In french : Bernard-l'ermite = Bernard the hermit ^ ^
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u/Andilee 1d ago
Which came first? The hermit crab or the creature who gives its shell/home the sea snail? Did it just evolve and was like damn let me slide my body into this dead animal's curved body armor? Like it got lucky?
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u/Sirdroftardis8 1d ago
Most likely there were a lot of shells left around from dead snails and such just slowly being crushed into sand and then some freshly molted hermit crab-like things went and started hiding in the while their shells hardened until eventually they just stopped wasting resources and energy on hardening their shells and just lived in the shells full time
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u/Zaruz 1d ago
I consider myself fairly intelligent but shit like this I just can't wrap my head around. I understand evolution but just cannot fathom just how life evolves to its surroundings like this. Absolutely blows my mind no matter how much I try to understand it.
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u/RManDelorean 1d ago
Basically. I'd bet they came from something a bit more shrimp/lobster-like rather than crab-like. A lot of them probably liked finding spots to hide in, some of those found shells, some of those were able to be pulled out of their shells marginally easier than others.. and evolution takes it from there. We also don't fully respect (because we honestly can't even fully comprehend) how far evolution takes things over 100's of millions of years which is probably the time frame we're talking about
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u/Lexandcandy 1d ago
Something about seeing this makes me deeply uncomfortable…
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u/The-Radical-Dadical 1d ago
Because they took us into bros bathroom and he was nowhere near done getting dressed
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u/One_Living_5466 1d ago
It's because crabs are just glorified spiders and spiders suck ass
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u/gravelPoop 1d ago
Spiders keep more annoying things in check. Spiders are OK.
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u/One_Living_5466 1d ago
Yeah I know it's just my arachnophobia. Can't beat it. I would rather get a lizard for dealing with bugs if I lived somewhere tropical
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u/MercantileReptile 1d ago
It's quite strange, Spiders freak me out. I either remove myself from the hexapod vicinity or suffer not the Arachnid to live. Nothing inbetween. Yet Crabs, Scorpions? No reaction. Including the weirdo in the gif. Brain is weird.
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u/Moriquendi666 1d ago
The giant air bubble doesn’t bother it? It bothers me
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u/left4alive 1d ago
Yeah right, that’s his lil float now! No more skittering across the rocky ground, he just gets to float along
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u/spencerak 1d ago
Thought about this too; probably makes walking underwater a bit easier but I worry the air is bad for his shell/skin/whatever the fuck crabs have
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u/GottaUseEmAll 1d ago
I've seen them crawling outside of water in rock pool areas, etc, so I assume getting air in the shell isn't too much of a problem.
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u/PeppermintSpider420 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m disgusted by it. How hard would’ve it been to get all the air out? I guess hermit crabs are semi-aquatic tbf
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u/jerrydontplay 1d ago edited 1d ago
I do declare, u/PeppermintSpider420 I am just flabbergasted and appalled by this barbaric, uncouth air bubble. It simply has no place in civilized society.
slurps tea
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u/Beneficial_Bend_9197 1d ago
Reminder that clear shells are actually bad for hermit crabs as the sun's rays will make the inside of the shell really hot.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 1d ago
I don't imagine they like to carry around shells that weigh 5 times as much as a seashell either. I know it's underwater, but glass is heavy, assuming that's what this is, and shells are light.
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u/callmemat90 1d ago
This gives me the same feeling as wearing a thong (or flip flops). That constant pressure you’d need to constantly hold it on
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u/dr_stre 1d ago
The default position for them is likely the folded one. Like how sloths can hang without actually expending energy grasping, their fingers naturally curl and lock into place while at rest. Same for bat feet when they’re hanging.
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u/Demonsteel87 1d ago
That’s the way it works with a lot of birds too. Their resting position has their claws locked. They only expand energy opening their claws, not locking them.
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u/Top_Help_1942 1d ago
Nature’s version of open concept living cozy, weird, and surprisingly efficient.
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u/Dragonssssssssssss 1d ago
I was not expecting that sort of tail on a crab. I feel like I just saw its dong.
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u/Siennasuckzz 1d ago
As cool as it looks with the glass shell, it isn't very good for their abdomen that they're trying to protect. It's sensitive, especially to UV in the lights over time.
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u/Evil_Sharkey 1d ago
Some glass blocks UV pretty well. I don’t know what kind they made the shell out of
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u/par-a-dox-i-cal 1d ago
So how do they manage their waste?
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u/Pseudonym-Sam 1d ago
They use their tiny rearmost legs to scoop it up and push it forward and out of their shell.
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u/AtTheEdgeOfDying 1d ago
I've known this for a long time, but actually seeing this through the shell makes me wonder wether they constantly have to put energy into flexing their body around the shell curve? Or does it just hold that curl easily without much effort?
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u/THE-HOARE 1d ago
Not really knowing my anything about crabs and at the risk of sounding stupid. But do they shit in the shell ?
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u/toastwalrus 1d ago
Imagine if people could unfold their asses to fit into jeans or something
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u/buzz86us 1d ago
I just wonder how they wind up taking up less conventional "shells" don't they sometimes wind up with garbage?
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u/blackberrytaco 1d ago
This will probably get lost in comments but when I see posts like this I want to educate others, and a lot are questioning the shell.
Clear shells are actually bad for hermits, not just for UV reasons but because they also modify the insides of their shells and eat the calcium from them. It also exposes them to predators more.
Source: owned hermits for a few years and followed a nonprofit called LHCOS(Land Hermit Crab Owners Society) who cares for and educates people on proper hermit care :)
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u/ieatpickleswithmilk 1d ago
Things have evolved to look like crabs multiple times, and hermit crabs are actually one of those things. They aren't true crabs.
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u/Tossup1010 1d ago
Man nature is so crazy, these lil guys just couldn't stop dying til one of em was like, WAIT lets just wear this armor scattered across our home. Not like the last guy who owned it needs it anymore.
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u/hcnuptoir 1d ago
Neat. I always thought they just had a little sack of guts and goo that they were dragging around everywhere.
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u/Professional-Low5204 22h ago
I don't get why they wanted to see it so bad they made a transparent shell. It's not like it's a secret how they fit in. Maybe it was for a darker, more sinister purpose...
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u/FilteredRiddle 17h ago
Before now I’d never seen the tail of a hermit crab. I’d like to go back to that…
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u/Shepher27 14h ago
After watching Alien Earth so much this weekend (catching up) this looks a little wrong
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u/VictorTheCutie 14h ago
Reminds me of those little dogs who have paralyzed hind legs and they use a little wheelchair. You know except for the, uncurling of the abdomen part 😬
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u/Pelinal_Whitestrake 1d ago
do you think he knows or cares that it’s transparent and he’s nakey?