Sometimes it surprises me just how well crabs enjoy digging and burrowing. The only thing I believe they love more is climbing..which is nearly as shocking. Before owning them as pets...I did alot of research so I'd know how to properly care for them. It's one thing to read information...and totally another to see it in action. It now makes me really sad when I see petstores displaying them in little desert scenes...with shallow sand, heatlamp and only a small "hermit hut" for escape. No provisions for humidity at all...AND they endorse those stupid "critter keepers" with the screenlike lids. Which happen to be the worst thing EVER to home hermits in. Yeah..they can live in it, for a while...before the lack of humidity suffocates them. Which, can take months, of agony for the poor little guys. They breathe through gills for goodness sake...those arent really meant to function in a dry arid environment! And the tap water most stores will say is just fine for them...which contains chlorine...which blisters their gills, and again, suffocation! Ok...enough petstore rant.


I swear there are little burrows crisscrossing the tank substrate, which cave in, then the hermits excitedly begin re-excavating. the plants I got for them to climb on were so well enjoyed I had to find a different way to hold them up! they came with little suction cups...but those couldnt handle the sheer weight of 6 or 7 crabs hanging off of it at once. They're now hung and entwined on their winding driftwood root..where they can all hang on there if they please. It's funny to watch them climb down..cause you can tell their pinchers must be strong....to keep their shell from causing them to roll the rest of the way down. It's a wonder they can climb..dragging a heavy shell along.