One trip reintroduced me to hermit crabs. I remembered a sibling having one as a kid and thinking it was pretty neat, so I bought two of the little guys with a little starter kit that the store recommended. I couldn’t wait to watch what I hoped would be excitement and not sheer terror on the girl’s faces as the crabs emerged from their shells to walk around.
But then I started researching the the little creatures and found out that they are actually not great pets at all. Not for kids anyway- unless that kid likes pets that they almost never see. It turns out they are mostly nocturnal.
They are not low maintenance. I didn’t get them the easy, temporary, first pet I’d thought I was getting. I didn’t remember crabs living for very long, and they really don’t most of the time because people don’t know how to take care of them properly.
When I was a kid in the 80’s and they were somewhat popular for a bit, there was no internet to tell you that those little plastic starter kits will soon become a little plastic coffin for poor Hermie.
They breathe through gills and need to have a high humidity environment to do so, they need to be able to bury themselves in sand and substrate to safely molt, and there’s the threat of cannibalism if you fail to meet these criteria. And they are actually social…with each other. To a point. That point again being cannibalism.
I didn’t want them to suffer, so I spent more money on a bigger tank…. and a heat rock…. and a hygrometer…. and coconut substrate- all the other little things that I hoped would keep them from suffocating in their skin for the next possibly 20 years- because, yep, that’s their lifespan in captivity.
So when I bought a pet on impulse, I had really committed myself to caring for something that is actually very spider-like when you get up close and will outlive my cat and most of my friendships.
