Hermit Crabs

Sasha, my hermit crab, is missing. This is bad enough, but she's also gravely ill, and wondering around, lost in my bathroom, butt naked. Nope, things could not get much worse for the crab, and Meridith and I have vowed not to go into the bathroom until either a. it starts to smell, or b. Shasha shows back up on the counter top. Neither of us really wants to be the one to find her, she looks pretty bad as it is. Why is she lost in my bathroom without a shell? Well, you see, Sasha hasn't looked all that good since her friend, Indiana Jones, lost his large claw when he shed in the fall and died soon afterward. I don't think I'm that good at raising Hermit Crabs, we've already had three die successfully in the past 6 months.

Sasha and Indiana Jones (Indi) were a classic, tragic love story. Hermit Crabs cannot mate in captivity, but this didn't discurage their love. The day my sister brought home and named Sasha, Indi went through a whole personallity change. She walked right up to him and climbed affectionaltly on top of him. The once quite, secluted, but brave explorer, now gave up his high climbing adventures (I'd often have to rescure him from dangling a foot above the ground in his tank hanging by one claw) to stay next to Sasha. They went everywhere together. None of my other crabs were as social as these too. If Sasha would wonder off to get some food after a nap, Indi would wake up, freak out and go find her. As touching this was, it didn't last. One day Indi shed his skin. Now hermit crabs shed their about once every 18 months, and it had been a little more than a year since I had bought him, so I had been expecting this. Unfortunatly, my sis wasn't. She thought he had died, and preformed the ceremonial ducktaped checkbook cofin, and gave it to Dad to bury him. I had just got home when Meridith had told me what happened. I cought Dad in the nick of time before he burried the poor, sheding, crab. But alas, my efforts came too late. Indi lost his large claw, which he uses to eat, protect himself, and climb.

Indi fell into depression. Like an old mad, he slept in a corner, hardly moving all day. And he shoved Sasha out of his life. Indi spent a whole afternoon running away from Sasha, who just didn't understand. Alas, their love was over. Indi couldn't last until his next sheding without his large claw, he withered away and died, without ever making up to Sasha, who decided to reside on the highest branch in the tank, as far away from Indi as possible.

Sasha shed her skin only a month after Indi's death. Meridith waited and worried, hoping she wouldn't be another 'Indi.' Luckily, she was just fine. But only a month later she shed her skin again. Hermit crabs aren't supposed to do that. I was worried.

Due to my lack of Crab-care skills, Sasha was now the last crab left in the tank. The day after her shed, she did one of the worse things a crab can do; she left her shell. Yep, I woke up and found her butt naked in the same corner Indi died in. Well, Meridith freaked out and checked an online help site and the news was not good. Sometimes, crabs just do strange things like this for no reason. They just get depressed or something and try to end it all. But Meridith and I tried an emergency procedure. This involved one of Mom's glass bowls, a mesuring cup, 2 shells, and a clean counter top. The idea was to get the crab back into it's shell, because they don't last long without it. Well, we preformed the procedure (Meridith and I had to flip a coin to decide who whould do it) and left the crab in the glass bowl with 2 shells in the bathroom.

When we returned two hours later, the bowl was still there, and so was the shells, but no crab. Personally, I suspect Marie, my dog, found a tasty treat while doing her daily investigation of the bathroom. We have kept the door closed, just incase this halfdead crab excapes, but I'm not expecting anything but a stench in a couple of days