We have all seen hermit crabs in painted shells at the pet store or in a kiosk at the mall. Usually they are painted to look like cartoon characters, holiday themes, simple designs, or sports themes. In today's article I want to you a little bit about where painted shells come from, the methods used to get crabs into painted shells, what happens when you get your crab home, and what all of this means for me, for you, and for the crabs.

Painted shells are painted in large numbers for very little money. This poses two kids of problems. First, workers aren't making a living wage, second, the distributors are collecting thousands (yes, thousands) of viable shells from beaches and rendering them useless to crabbers. In a time when wild land and marine hermit crabs are suffering a severe shell shortage, this might be the most damaging practice of the entire painted shell cycle.

Hermit crabs are harvested from the wild. This we know. In the wild they are wearing natural shells. By the time they get to your local pet store they are in painted shells. The question has been posed many times. How do they get from their original shell into the painted one. We know that they are not painting them in the shell because they would ruin the paint crawling all over one another.

We are therefore forced to concede that they are being removed from one shell and placed in another. I don't know if you've ever tried to get a hermit crab to come out of its shell but take my word for it, they aren't going to go willingly. In fact, most hermit crabs will allow themselves to be torn in half before letting go of their shell. That leaves us with only a few options, all of them relying on the crab leaving it's shell of it's own free will.

Many methods have been suggested over the years with not a lot of hard evidence for any of them. Most of them are rumors but I've heard the following three rumors often enough to believe that there are some truth to them. One is to use electricity or heat to get the crab to leave it's shell. One is to force the shell under water until the crab leaves to avoid drowning. The final one is to place the hermit crabs in a small cage that prevents them from getting to food and water that is outside the "bars" of the cage. Once they leave their shell to get to water, they are moved to the painted shell box. A crab will re-shell quickly when naked. If the only choices are painted shells, that's where he will go.

Personally I believe that the first one is the most likely although some part of me secretly hopes that they are drugging the crabs and removing them while they are limp and sleepy. Much less traumatic all around. However, I've never hear that possibility from any source, credible or no.

The shells are painted on the outside and often on the inside as well. They are not always dry when the crabs move into them, you can read about Piccalo's horrible ordeal when her crab came home stuck inside it's shell because of the paint.

Manufactures and distributors will make lots of claims about the benefits of painted shells. Some will say that scientist have proven that crabs prefer painted shells. Not true. There has never been a scientific study that showed crabs prefer brightly colored shells. In fact, many crabbers have observed that a crab will choose a shell that helps to camouflage them the most. All the crabs I have ever had ditched their painted shell within 1 day of arriving in my terrarium and no one ever changes into them.

There are also painted shell vendors that claim that they sell a "no peel" shell. Well Milo, pictured at the beginning of the article is in one of their "no peel" shell. Seashells are not a surface conducive to a permanent paint job. Add to that a crab that is crawling around in sand and high humidity and very few types of paints would withstand that treatment.
What happens to all this garbage paint coming off of these shells? The same thing that happens to anything in the crabitat, it gets eaten. Hermit crabs are constantly picking up and nibbling on things in their environment and the paint chips are no different. I have even seen crabs eating the paint right off of another crabs shell. And if you don't believe that a crab can pick the paint off of a shell, keep in mind that crabs can and will chip away at the opening of the shell they are in until it is the right shape and size.


It has also become trendy to glue plastic baseball and football helmets over shells during sports season. These are often so cumbersome that the hermit crabs can barely maneuver and cannot hide at all because they no longer fit into caves and cocohuts. Similar to this trend is the disasterous Hermit Crab "Bling" kits that encourage kids to glue sparkles, pompoms, and rhinestones to their hermit crabs shell. All will fall off within a few weeks and all of which are harmful to your crab.


In a time when most petstores have undertaken a voluntary ban on selling animals like the painted glassfish it's long past due to stop a practice that is harmful to hermit crabs, depleting much needed natural resources, and encouraging children and their parents to walk into disasterous "impulse buy" situations that lead to poorly treated and often neglected hermit crabs once the family loses interest. As easy going as I am about differing opinions regarding hermit crab care, this is something that should unite us. Hermit crabs are not a toy, they are not a throwaway pet, and they deserve better. We, as caretakers of the planet, are the ones who must step up and get the job done.

I had acquired somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 hermit crabs when I learned, for the first time, that hermit crabs are harvested directly from the wild. I stood gazing into the tank. Every one of these crabs had been roaming a beach somewhere, probably in another country. The largest of my clan, a very big robust fellow was probably in his 20s or 30s. It was a horrifying moment. As a long time pet lover and pet owner, wild harvested animals were on a very specific and firm list of animals I would never own. It was precisely this reason that I never looked into getting a salt water tank. Too many tropical fish are wild harvested.

Now, this is only my opinion. We all make our own philosophies for ourselves. However the fact remains, that each hermit crab owner must make the decision of whether or not to buy crabs from a commercial pet store. The journey a crab takes from beach to petstore is not a pleasant one. They are collected in burlap sack where they may sit for days, even weeks as the harvesters work to meet their minimum load. Then it's time spent crated, shipped, delivered and unpacked. To add to the difficulty, most pet store setups don't meet basic humidity, temp, or water requirements and the crabs are additionally stressed because of this.

Armed with this knowledge, a hermit crab owner should never find themselves in front of the crab tank at the local petstore. Yet, there we stand, chatting with the petsmart worker who knows us by sight as the "crab lady". (Not that this has ever happened to me . . . um ever. Yeah, right.) And as we dig through each of the crabs in the tank, we find that one. You guys all know the one. He's feisty. He's usually missing a few limbs. He's social. He's usually got some hideous shell strapped to his back that you just know could be replaced with a turbo you have at home that is *just* the right size.

Then the cold pangs of guilt hit you. You take Snappy home (no, I don't know when he got a name) and you are supporting an industry you swore you would never contribute money to. You leave him here, it is practically a death sentence. If you are like me, sometimes you walk away, sometimes you bring him home, and sometimes you bring him and 4 of his friends.

Look, there is no right answer on this one. Your head tells you that buying them isn't right. You can sign up as an adoptor but they just don't turn up very often. Your heart tells you that this little feisty guy needs a chance and you've got a wonderful setup that could make his crappy day into something not so bad. Both are right. You're not a horrible person for buying that crab. You're not the perfect crab mama for walking away. Each day is a struggle, take it day by day, and case by case. You have to pick your battles. And today, I decided that this battle was better fought *for* Snappy, rather than for all of hermit crab kind. Who knows? Maybe next time will be different, or maybe next time I'll get Snappy a friend named Pinchy. (Note: I had to hold his shell to make him stand still, he's feisty I tell ya!)