Have you ever had things happen to you that make you think differently about some creatures? Well, I have, today, on January 1st, 2009, I bought a hermit crab, Happy Gilmore, as a friend for my previous hermit crab, Dennis Herman. The same day I witnessed the most unusual and seemingly organized/brilliant thing ever- they switched shells! 

I was playing WoW when my younger sister comes running into the room screaming that one of my hermit crabs had taken off its shell! To my surprise, when I got to the cage Dennis had put on Happy’s smiley face shell, and Happy was half-naked, putting on Dennis’s shell, which had a heart, that looked like a hand grenade, with wings.

The thing that makes this all even more amazing, is the fact that Happy Gilmore was a small hermit crab with a HUGE shell, and Dennis Herman was a slightly bigger hermit crab with a very SMALL shell. It’s like they planned it all out when they met each other. (Either that or Dennis pulled Happy out of his shell, and Happy took the closest available shell, maybe? Although there were plenty other shells in the cage!)

This could mean hermit crabs have a great way to communicate- or it could also have been a shell war, just like siblings fighting over something the other has, but they want just so the other can not have it.

The world may never know!