Two Cypraea maculifera Schilder, 1932. On the left is a juvenile specimen which has not deposited its dorsal pattern yet, and beside it is another specimen with its typical "net" pattern completed.
Observation - One of this writer's earliest "observations" occurred soon after being stationed on the island of Oahu. While snorkeling along the shoreline of Sunset Beach on the North Shore area, I saw a "clump" of small shells in the valley of one of the many sand rills along the bottom. Upon picking it up for a closer look, I saw that there were three 'crabbed' shells, held together by the crabs themselves. They seemed completely oblivious to my holding them in my hand. As it turned out, there were some serious 'negotiations' underway. About a minute after picking them up, two of the (hermit) crabs -- while holding on to each other, and both shells -- synchronously extracted themselves from their respective abodes, turned around, and retreated into the other's shell. They had decided it was time for a change!
In the following years of working and collecting in the ocean, this was observed a few more times but more useful yet was the witnessing of almost any hermit crab's uncontrollable urge to move to another, presumably better, shell. This was handy in cases where a good-looking hermit crab was in a good-looking shell. If you wanted the shell but didn't want to "off" the crab, you just offerred it a slightly larger, albeit much less appealing-to-the-eye ersatz. If they "know what's good for them," and they usually do, they make the move. A little patience on the collector's part is all that is needed. Just put the 'crabbed' shell into a salt-water aquarium -- one that has little, if anything, that can be torn up or eaten by the crab -- along with the empty shell that's being offerred as an alternative. By the next morning, the swap will most likely have been made.
View last issue's OBSERVATIONS page.
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