So earlier in the week we had a hermit crab fiasco. My youngest son, CJ, had taken his crab out and then decided to smash it's claw... which actually fell off shortly after along with a leg. The next day my oldest son discovered it's 'dead body' laying in the water, complete with wet drippy guts. I sadly scooped up the carcass and old shell and brought it to the kitchen sink, tipped over the old shell and discovered a bright pink alienesk parasite! (The crab) but only after trying to scoop out the 'old' crab skeleton from the shell. I heard a distinct suction sound as I used my flimsy wooden toothpick and then it moved, scaring the life out of me.
And then I googled hermit crab molting and discovered that I needed to recover the old skeleton shell out of the garbage and put both the crab and old skeleton back in the tank so it could eat the old shell. The next day I lifted the hermit hut ( half a coconut shell ) and saw the whole crab out of it's shell curled up on top of the old shell and it was eating it. It was so gross, like looking at a naked creature that had just been born. It still looked like a parasite, so of course I called all the kids over to laugh at how it looked without it's shell. Fun times!
