Trading up

March 4, 2015 7:40 PM

Hermit crabs [previously] queue up for new homes. All very civilized.
posted by wemayfreeze (19 comments total)

Another example of how the invisible claw of the shell market hurts the smallest crabs.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:47 PM on March 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

One of the graduate students in the astronomy department described this video to me as "the academic job market."
posted by RubixsQube at 7:49 PM on March 4, 2015 [25 favorites]

Look at me, Dr Zoidberg, home owner!
posted by Poldo at 7:51 PM on March 4, 2015 [13 favorites]

I think I'm going to save this for when I talk to my first years about the difference between queues and stacks.
posted by parliboy at 8:02 PM on March 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

That was really weird to see hermit crabs without their shells. So soft and... vulnerable.
posted by tickingclock at 8:04 PM on March 4, 2015

And having their soft, vulnerable rear ends tucked into a shell with just a few grains of sand makes me feel so itchy, but that was amazing.
posted by gladly at 8:11 PM on March 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Simultaneously adorable and horrifying! You don't see that combo all the time.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:15 PM on March 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

The Virtue of Shellfishness
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:16 PM on March 4, 2015 [11 favorites]

I think I'm going to save this for when I talk to my first years about the difference between queues and stacks.

With bearded dragons demonstrating stacks, of course.

And dogs to represent the heap.
posted by Foosnark at 8:21 PM on March 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it's "all very civilized..." until the big Hermie-come-lately shows up like he owns the place and is just too cool to play by the rules, bro. Jerky McJerkbutt Crustjerkfacean. I hate that guy.
posted by argonauta at 8:44 PM on March 4, 2015 [9 favorites]

But obviously it's only thanks to that Randian titan of industry that there was enough liquidity in the market to facilitate commerce at all! The economy was at a standstill! And now, a rising tide, etc.!

Moral: more deregulation!
posted by nobody at 2:53 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

They're hermit crabs, they'd be shocked and ashamed if they knew they were being filmed.
posted by tommasz at 4:45 AM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ack! So cute!

I feel so bad for the little guys who have to use trash that washes up on the beach as a shell. In my chronic anthropomorphizing, I imagine there are different levels of sucky non-shell homes. It's one thing if you lucked into an airplane-service-sized Jack Daniels bottle and look like some kinda hermit crab badass, but some other poor fucker is walking around with, I don't know, a dirty piece of PVC pipe or a lime green DeKuypers apple schnapps bottle thinking, "fuck me, fuck humans, fuck all y'all."
posted by NikitaNikita at 5:13 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

re: examples of hermit crabs using random trash as shells:

(one article with two examples)

google images search for more
posted by NikitaNikita at 5:18 AM on March 5, 2015

That was...extraordinary. Nature is really cool sometimes.
posted by notsnot at 6:15 AM on March 5, 2015

That was a super cool video, but I learned an important lesson about not watching videos of scuttling, chitinous things crawling about immediately before going to sleep for the night. My dreams were not, shall we say, pleasant.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:52 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hermit crabs are social animals too. So now, thanks to NikitaNikita, I can just imagine all the crap they get they from their peers when they wind up wearing refuse.
posted by JaredSeth at 11:02 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I fell in love with hermit crabs years ago, during a vacation in Montego Bay. The resort we were staying in, the Royal Villas at Half Moon Bay, offered hermit crab races in the evenings, with the proceeds going to a local charity (an orphanage, I believe).

Hermit crabs of various sizes, with colourfully painted shells, were put in the center of a large circular target marking on the floor. Once the domed cover was removed, the first to reach the outer marker won the race.

Size didn't necessarily mark the winner, as sometimes the larger ones just stayed put and the smaller ones scuttled to a fast win. Other times, it took a good 15 minutes before one of them finally made it across the finish line.

Although, when you are enjoying the Caribbean breezes under the moonlight, sipping on a fruity drink while you watch the hermit crabs do their leisurely races -- rushing through things seems like the last thing on your mind.
posted by Jade Dragon at 3:09 PM on March 5, 2015

"And then they do something really rather extraordinary; they arrange themselves in an orderly queue."


Most british video ever.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:44 PM on March 5, 2015