Lifecycle Of Hermit Crabs – The 4 Main Stages
Author: Jerry Montgomery
The lifecycle of hermit crabs is eventful and fraught with danger especially at the hatching stage. Naturally, if you own a pet hermit crab you will be interested to learn in a little more detail just how your lovable little friend came to be, and so, hopefully this article will give you a bit more of an insight into both the breeding and lifecycle of hermit crabs.
There are two categories of hermit crab and these are aquatic and terrestrial. Although aquatic is by far the larger category, I am going to talk about the life cycle of
land hermit crabs since this is the type that most people have as pets.
There are four main stages in the lifecycle of hermit crabs and these are as follows:
1. Mating
In order for the lifecycle to begin, mating has to take place between a male and female hermit crab. This is not always as easy as it sounds and the male has to "knock" gently on a female's shell to persuade her to emerge. They need to stretch their bodies quite a way out of their shells so that male can place his spermataphor into a female's gonopores, which is where her eggs are stored. Once the eggs are fertilized, she will carry them in a mass attached to her abdomen, inside her shell. This keeps the eggs both moist and safe from predators.
2. Eggs
At this stage in the lifecycle of hermit crabs, most of the activity is taking place inside the abdomen. There are hundreds of eggs, although to a great extent this depends on the size of the female. The developing crabs go through four stages and two of these, the baupilus and protozoea occur inside the abdomen. Once the eggs are ready to be hatched, the expectant mother makes her way to the ocean at low tide. Once there she deposits the eggs onto the rocks, almost by throwing them, where they hatch as the waves wash over them.
3. Zoea
When the eggs hatch, they look nothing like crabs and are referred to as zoea. During this part of the lifecycle of hermit crabs, they become tiny shrimp like creatures and spend their life swimming around in the ocean as part of the plankton. They are very vulnerable and fall prey to larger sea creatures, such as fish, who view them as a tasty meal. Also the ocean currents can send them different areas than where they were first hatched.
4. Glaucothoe
The tiny shrimp like creatures undergo several moltings, sometimes as many as six, each lasting about a week. It is this stage of the lifecycle that creates the transformation into a creature that resembles a crab and it is referred to as glaucothoe. The crab now swims and walks about but remains in the ocean where he starts his search for a shell in which to live. A switched on crab will try and find his shell underwater, since tiny crabless shells rarely make it ashore without dying.
The baby crab will begin to edge further and further away from the shore where he leads a nocturnal existence. He will undergo several more moltings, until finally his body is ready for puberty, which is normally in their second year. He is now ready to breed and so the lifecycle of hermit crabs begins all over again.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/hobbies-articles/lifecycle-of-hermit-crabs-the-4-main-stages-3324564.html
About the Author
Jerry Montgomery is reviewing a book to help you raise healthy Hermit Crabs http://www.ugothermitcrabs.com