### animal | arthropod | decapod:

Hermit crab
* All hermit crabs require salt water to regulate the saline content of their bodies.
* Many hermit crabs are adapted to live in empty snail shells and are considered to be mobile.
* Most hermit crabs are scavengers on dead plant or animal matter
  - come from sea
* Most hermit crabs drink salt water
* Most hermit crabs excrete urine
  - waste
* Most hermit crabs have claws
  - hairy claws
  - inhabit snail shells
* Most hermit crabs live in locations
  - near oceans
  - on beaches
  - love food
  - mate in saltwaters
* Most hermit crabs possess abdomens
  - soft abdomens
  - rely on saltwaters
  - return to water
  - shed exoskeletons
  - use snail shells
* Some hermit crabs carry anemones
  - eat algas
  - go through metamorphosis
* Some hermit crabs have anemones attached to their shells
  - symbiotic relationships with sponges
  - leave homes
  - live in areas
* Some hermit crabs live on bottoms
  - sea bottoms
  - trees
  - lose limbs
  - make homes
* Some hermit crabs provide additional protection
* appear to be a permanent fixture of the land and seascape of pacific atolls
  - remember the shell-types they formerly occupied
* are able to regenerate any lost or broken limbs during the moulting process
  - actually omnivorous and they feed on microscopic scraped off surfaces
  - also interesting, and vary in color and size
* are an exception because they lack a hard calcified abdominal shell
  - exception, because the males tend to grow larger than the females
  - common on the beach
  - crustaceans who have a soft abdomen and live in the ocean
  - invertebrates, animals without a backbone
  - nocturnal, so they eat late at night and in the wee hours of the morning
  - omnivores
  - omnivorous scavengers and like variety in their diet
  - quite common in tidepols
  - slow eaters
  - tropical animals and do best in warm temperatures
  - usually everywhere, scavenging the reef in their clumsy, borrowed shells
* are very active and fascinating to observe
  - inhabitants of coastal and deep waters
  - particular about their shell homes
  - quarrelsome amongst themselves over the availability of snail shells
  - social creatures
* attach sea anemones to their shells for camouflage.
* can cause damage
  - sometimes go many days without eating
* do best in glass or acrylic aquariums decorated with branches, empty shells and plants.
* eat small amounts very slowly.
* find a shell from the body of a snail-like mollusk and use it for protection
* gather in large numbers to exchange their old shells for new ones.
* go from shell to shell throughout their lives.
* have a varied diet
  - claws that can pinch
  - elongate, soft, asymmetrical abdomens that they protect with an empty snail shell
  - interesting mating rituals that differ between species
  - nutritional requirements to maintain color, health and molting
  - specific preferences on which type of habitat suits it best
  - two breathing ways
  - unusual homes
* hide their soft abdomens in spiral shells cast off by sea snails or other mollusks.
* inhabit all throughout the polar regions to the tropical waters
* live in discarded shells
  - empty shells to protect their tender backsides
  - shells and are scavengers
  - the empty shells of snails
* lose their shells.
* love climbing on cholla wood
* molt in the wild all the time and they know what to do.
* need air
  - diets
* prefer fruit such as apples.
* rely on aban- doned snail shells for protection
* require privacy when elimating their wastes.
* seem particularly fond of having a varied diet.
  - skin
* spend most of their time while looking for the perfect shell
  - several weeks in the plankton as larvae before settling and metamorphosing
* tend to be nocturnal and they eat near sunrise or at dark
  - reproduce many in order to maintain their population
* use old shells from other animals as their homes
* withdraw reflexively into their shells in the presence of a novel stimulus.