Fish and Marine Life Illustrations

Red Reef Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati), colored pencil

Commissioned by: California Science Center Foundation

About hermit crabs:
The hermit crab we are most familiar with, often kept as a pet, is also referred to as the "land hermit crab" (Genus: Coenobita) . The hermit crab illustrated above is a "reef hermit crab". Hermit crabs crawl into shells which have been discarded by other animals or, if the desired shell has not yet been abandoned, they remove the current "occupant". When they outgrow the shell, they abandon it and find a larger shell. They are scanvengers, eating dead and rotting material. Hermit crabs have five pair of a total of ten legs. The first pair are pinchers. The next two pair are walking pairs. The last two pair are used for cleaning.

Taxonomy:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda (having a segmented body with appendages on each segment)
Subphylum: Crustacea (having 3 body parts: head, thorax, and abdomen/pleon) (includes crabs, shrimp, lobster, and crayfish having five pair of appendages and two pair of antennae)
Class: Malacostraca (trunks having 14 segments plus the tail or telson. 8 segments are thorax, 6 are abdomen)
Order: Decapoda (Includes crabs, shrimp, lobster, and crayfish.)
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Anomura (hermit crabs, sand crabs, most adopt discarded shells)
Superfamily: Paguroidea
Family: Paguridae (right-handed hermit crabs)
Genus: Paguristes
Species: P. cadenati

More about hermit crabs:
Hermit Crabs, Use in the Marine Aquarium Hobby (describes taxonomy)
Brandywine Zoo: Land Hermit Crab
Wikipedia: Hermit Crab

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