Natures wonders: hermit crabs with blankets, not old shells (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 30, 2018, 22:16 (2367 days ago) @ David Turell

This type uses sea anemones as soft blankets:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/blanket-hermit-crabs-use-anemones-as...

"Let other hermit crabs use hard, uncomfortable shells that have to be rotated every 5,000 scuttles. Hermit crabs in the genus Paguropsis and Paguropsina have stumbled on a much better solution: flexible, toxin-secreting, cozy sea anemones that can be pulled up and down like a blanket.

"In the western Pacific and Indian Ocean, they gad about the seafloor making all the other hermit crabs jealous of their fabulous ballistic millinery.

***

"I have many questions about these crabs. Can the anemones wrapped around these crabs live independently? How and when do the anemone and the crab find each other? How effective are anemone-slankets relative to shells? I don't think scientists yet know the answers, given how little seen and studied these animals are.

"Though their cnidarian hinder-covers are certainly their most striking feature, blanket hermit crabs do possess few other notable traits that we can observe. Unlike regulation hermit crabs whose bodies are coiled to fit inside mollusk shells, these crabs are symmetrical. They have also lost the rasps other hermit crabs use to manipulate their shells, but have gained bear-claw or ice-tong-like appendages. With these they can tug their blankets all the way up to cover their heads to help keep the monsters away."

Comment: An alternate adaption seems like a easily explained reason why this happened. The anemones simply had to agree.