Hermit Crab mentality...

Last Christmas we went to a mall I could not resist taking a peek in the bazaar. As me and my son strolled one stall really took our attention. These are the hermit crabs in their colorful shells. We did not immediately bought any we asked a lot of questions about these little creatures.

It was on our second time to stroll again that we decided to buy 3 and took picture. My husband and son could not help but make a pose with these creatures. Who would have thought that these harmless minute specie can be a nice pet to bring into your home.

This prompted me to researched about the hermits here is what I found in wikipedia

"Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract Most frequently hermit crabs use the shells of sea snails (although the shells of bivalves and scaphopods and even hollow pieces of wood and stone are used by some species).The tip of the hermit crab's abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the columella of the snail shell.

As the hermit crab grows in size, it has to find a larger shell and abandon the previous one. This habit of living in a second hand shell gives rise to the popular name "hermit crab", by analogy to a hermit who lives alone. Several hermit crab species, both terrestrial and marine, use "vacancy chains" to find new shells: when a new, bigger shell becomes available, hermit crabs gather around it and form a kind of queue from largest to smallest. When the largest crab moves into the new shell, the second biggest crab moves into the newly vacated shell, thereby making its previous shell available to the third crab, and so on." (en.Wikipedia.org)

Maybe you can consider hermit crabs as your pets and you would fall in love with these tiny yet very friendly hermits.