Two homeless hermit crabs, paguroidea.
Hermit crabs don’t actually have shells, so they use shells that heve been abandoned by their previous owners. This is why when rock pooling anywhere on the British coast you will find hermit crabs living in winkle or whelk shells.
There is one hermit crab, called ‘Harry’ living in a shell made of lego, he lives in Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire. You can read more about Harry on the Guardain’s website, here…
While there are over 1,000 different types of hermit crab to be found around the world, they are actually closely related to lobsters rather than true crabs. And just like lobster, you can eat hermit crabs, simple dip the tail into batter and cook them as you would scampi.
When a shell starts to feel a little ”tight’ the hermit crab simple finds another empty shell and moves in. So while you find hermit crabs are consistently moving up the property ladder you’ll never find one downsizing..!
You can watch a hermit crab moving house below.
