Hermit Crabs: More Information
Description: Slender, jointed legs and long, delicate antennae peek out (up to an inch) from beneath the edge of the stubby spiral of the black snail shell, along with short eyestalks and small-but-busy mouthparts. Undisturbed, hermit crabs jostle and jerk along the tidepool bottom and through the seaweeds: slow moving snail shells are probably actually snails, fast moving snail shells are probably hermit crabs inside old snail shells.
Look closely at the legs and antennae of the hermit crabs—several different species can be found in Oregon tidepools in different tidepool zones.
Bright turquoise bumps on the legs and unbanded red antennae? Likely it is the grainy hermit crab or possibly the blue-handed hermit crab if it has bright blue bands on its legs. Both these species prefer the shells of the black turban snail.
“Hairy” legs with white banded legs? Much hairier than its cousins, it is likely the hairy hermit crab.
Taxonomy:
| Kingdom | Animalia -- Animal, animals, animaux | ||
| Phylum | Arthropoda -- arthropodes, arthropods, Artrópode | ||
| Subphylum | Crustacea Brünnich, 1772 -- crustaceans, crustáceo, crustacés | ||
| Class | Malacostraca Latreille, 1802 | ||
| Subclass | Eumalacostraca Grobben, 1892 | ||
| Superorder | Eucarida Calman, 1904 -- camarão, caranguejo, ermitão, lagosta, siri | ||
| Order | Decapoda Latreille, 1802 -- crabes, crabs, crayfishes, crevettes, écrevisses, homards, lobsters, prawns, shrimp | ||
| Suborder | Pleocyemata Burkenroad, 1963 | ||
| Infraorder | Anomura MacLeay, 1838 | ||
| Superfamily | Paguroidea Latreille, 180 |
Common species:
Pagurus granosimanus (Stimpson, 1859) -- grainyhand hermit, grainy hermit crab
Pagurus hirsutiusculus (Dana, 1851) -- hairy hermit crab
Pagurus samuelis (Stimpson, 1857) -- blueband hermit, blue-handed hermit
Taxonomic information source: ITIS.gov