Hermit Crab, Colombier Beach, Saint BarthelemyHere’s another one from this past weekend in Saint Barths. There are more than 1100 species of hermit crabs so I won’t even venture a guess at which one this is. It was quite large, however — about the size of a baseball. All hermit crabs live inside a salvaged seashell, usually from a snail, which they use for protection. They have a soft abdomen which retracts into the shell when threatened. As they get older, it is necessary to abandon their smaller shells in exchange for a larger one. Competition over available shells can be intense. It can also be quite cooperative. With certain species of hermit crabs, a vacancy chain can occur. A crab looking for a larger shell will climb out of its current shell and inspect the new, larger shell. If the new shell is too large, the crab will climb back into its old shell and wait patiently for another crab to come along. Twenty or more crabs may inspect the vacant shell and deem it to be too large, so they will line up in order of size until the right size crab comes along to claim the new shell. Then the next in line will get that crab’s shell, and in turn, pass its old shell on to the next in line, and on and on.
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/500th of a second