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Land hermit crab |
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The only hermit crab that lives on dry land. "Tiny", a land hermit crab, was once somebody's pet. |
Getting
away from the crowd The land hermit crab is the only hermit crab that can live on the land. All the others live in the sea. |
It must be careful not to lose too much water. So it:
- lives where there is moist sand and sea spray
- buries itself in the damp sand during the heat of the day.
Seashore cleaner
The land hermit crab's food is the dead and rotting things along the seashore.
It is a useful garbage collector for the monsoonal coast.
| Danger
everywhere The land hermit crab does not have a hard shell of its own. It uses old empty shells to protect its soft body. When danger threatens, it hides in the shell, and closes the entrance with its hard claw. The female lays her hundreds of eggs inside the borrowed shell. These eggs are safe and damp in the shell but, when they hatch, they must be released in the sea. The young are in great danger until they can find a shell of their own. |
People are also a
danger to the land hermit crab. People:
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The land hermit crab
- needs a damp environment to live in
- uses old shells to live in for protection and to stop drying out
- cleans up the shore line.
 There is not much competition from other kinds of she-oak in this coastal environment. Port Douglas, Queensland. Photo: Botanic Gardens of Adelaide |
 Vegetation
Coastal she-oak Coastal she-oak is usually confined to a narrow band of well-drained sand adjacent to the beach and tolerates salt in the soil as well as in the air, but must still have access to fresh water to survive. Like the land hermit crab, the she-oak has escaped competition by growing in a habitat not used by others in its family. The trees form dense stands, sometimes suckering from the roots, and stabilise beach dunes and sands. This stable environment provides opportunities for other plant species to establish. The nitrogen fixing nodules on the she-oak roots contribute to soil fertility for those plants. These attributes of the coastal she-oak have led to it being widely used in China for coastal dune stabilisation. References |