The Ecuadorian hermit crab (''Coenobita compressus'') also known as the Pacific hermit crab is a species of land

hermit crab Hermit crabs are anomuran Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the superfamily (taxonomy), superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit c ...

. It is one of the two land hermit crabs commonly sold in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

as pets, the other being the

Caribbean hermit crab The Caribbean hermit crab (''Coenobita clypeatus''), also known as the soldier crab, West Atlantic crab, tree crab, or purple pincher (due to the distinctive purple claw), is a species of land hermit crab native to the west Atlantic, Belize, ...

(''C. clypeatus'').Audrey Pavia
Hermit Crab

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Hermit Crabs

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Features and identification

''Coenobita compressus'' is a member of the phylum

Arthropoda Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated ( metameric) segments, and paired jointed appendages. ...

and the class

Malacostraca Malacostraca is the second largest of the six classes of pancrustaceans behind insects, containing about 40,000 living species, divided among 16 orders. Its members, the malacostracans, display a great diversity of body forms and include crab ...

. They can be up to in length and are thought to be one of the smallest species of land hermit crabs. They have four walking legs, a small pincer, a large pincer, and antennae. Their eyes are more oval-shaped when compared to the round eyes of Caribbean hermit crabs and are thicker. Their big claw has four or five small ridges on the upper part. The tips of the second pair of walking legs are darker than the rest of the leg. The abdomen of the Ecuadorian hermit crab is short and fat. Ecuadorian hermit crabs vary greatly in colour, some are bright (

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

, dark

grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

, or

orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

), but more often they are a tan colour. Sometimes, they may have a blue or green tint to their bodies or the insides of their legs. They also have comma-shaped eyes, unlike the "purple pincher" (''C. clypeatus''), which has dot-shaped eyes. When choosing a shell, they tend to give preference to shells with a wide and round

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

Habitats

Native to the Americas, these hermit crabs live on the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

seashore ranging from Mexico to Chile, and tend to gather around

tidal pool A tide pool or rock pool is a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky intertidal shore. These pools typically range from a few inches to a few feet deep and a few feet across. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only ...

s and high-tide zone. Their bodies have adapted to this seashore existence, and in captivity, they require access to seawater, as they must

metabolize Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the ...

the

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

in it and bathe in it to maintain gill moisture. Failure to provide access to seawater (real or artificial) will result in death. Like most hermit crabs, they are

scavenger Scavengers are animals that consume Corpse decomposition, dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a he ...

s and consume

seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

, dead

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

, and other

detritus In biology, detritus ( or ) is organic matter made up of the decomposition, decomposing remains of organisms and plants, and also of feces. Detritus usually hosts communities of microorganisms that colonize and decomposition, decompose (Reminera ...

that washes up on the shore.

Studies

''Coenobita compressus'' prefers the odors of foods that they have not recently eaten. Hermit crabs exposed to one food for at least 9 hours preferred foods having other odors for the next 6 hours. This short-term avoidance of food (like human beings who get bored with the same meals over and over again) compels the crabs to seek out a wider range of food. This might be advantageous to the crabs, possibly through the consumption of a more nutritionally balanced diet. Ecuadorian hermit crabs can make a chirping sound to communicate with each other.

As pets

Hermit crabs overall were once seen as a "throwaway pet" that would live only a few months, but species such as ''C. clypeatus'' have a 23-year lifespan if properly treated and some have lived longer than 32 years. Similarly, Ecuadorian hermit crabs have been known to live to over 30 years. In general, and despite their

moniker A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

, hermit crabs are social animals that do best in groups.

References

External links

Ecuadorian Hermit Crabs Wiki
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5334405 Hermit crabs Crustaceans of South America Crustaceans of the eastern Pacific Ocean Crustaceans described in 1836 Terrestrial crustaceans