I thought something was funny with my biggest crab, Clawde 2. He's been digging like mad in the wet sand trying to bury himself, and as he's the size of my hand he only manages to get about halfway in, the top of his shell peeking out of the sand..like a kid trying to hide from mom after being naughty.
Then he went and camped out in the crab hut all by himself. This isn't unusual, the bigger crabs don't run around as much as the little ones do. Then the other big crab, Clawdy (so shoot me, I'm bad with crab names) started to climb on top of the hut and see what was going on inside...he'd set up there for hours, not trying to go in, just sort of hanging around.
I figured he was missing his buddy, so I lifted the hut....and there was Clawde 2 all curled up in his shell, with his moulted exoskeleton beside him. Aww...he'd gone quiet to do his moult, and his buddy was worried about him. Once they saw each other again, everything was all right, and Clawdy even came out and had a drink and a little bath in the salt water dish.
The five little crabs, meanwhile, are having a high old time with Clawdy's moulted skin. They are dragging bits of it around the tank like toys. It's actually ok if they eat this, it's a good calcium source, so I'm letting them have some fun. It kinda looks like tiny dogs dragging bones around.
Meanwhile, the two big crabs are buddies again.
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