Cat versus hermit crab

We have had these little smelly hermit crabs now for about 3 years.  Crazy me thought it would be a good idea to get hermit crabs to accentuate a unit study that we were working on about tide pool animals.  At the time, I did not know that hermit crabs could live to be 25 years old.  I was thinking that they might make it a weekend or two but no, that is not the case.

 They are not really like the other bazillion pets we have in the sense that, they are not cuddly at all or even cute for that matter.  They pee on you when you pick them up and they pinch really hard.  They are actually a little odd.  They are just there in the aquarium, that is it.

Occasionally, they get a taste of freedom when we take them out of the aquarium and put them on the floor to crawl around.  They try to scoot away because they have no idea what is going on.  They just know that they better get moving.

As you can see, trying to scoot away is a good idea since there is a big, bad cat lurking in the background.

Shadow is definitely higher up on the food chain than this poor little hermit crab, and he looks like he is about to pounce.

photo by A11

Don't worry!  We did not let Shadow make a crabby patty out of him.  After all, he has at least another 22 good years ahead of him.  Oh joy!