Author: Yao-Hua Law / Source: Science News
The death of a millionaire with no heir draws an opportunistic crowd. So, too, does the demise of a land-dwelling hermit crab. Researchers working in Costa Rica found that the curious crabs are drawn to the smell of flesh torn from one of their own.
Dartmouth College biologist Mark Laidre, along with undergraduate student Leah Valdes, set out 20 plastic tubes on a beach, each holding bits of hermit crab flesh.
Within five minutes, almost 50 hermit crabs (Coenobita compressus) swarmed around each sample, the pair reports online February 10 in Ecology and Evolution. “It’s almost like they were celebrating a funeral,” Laidre says.The reality, however, is more macabre. That scent of flesh is a signal that a fellow land hermit crab has been eaten, and that its empty shell is available for the taking, Laidre says. The crabs “are all in an incredible frenzy to try to move into that leftover shell.”
None of the roughly 850 known hermit crab species, most of which live in the sea and some on land, can grow their own shells. Instead, the crabs occupy shells originally left behind by dead snails. A hermit crab grows to the size of its shell, but to grow further, the creature must find and occupy a larger shell.
For the roughly 20 or…
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