For Oscar's birthday this year he got a hermit crab habitat. Eventually, we bought him 2 crabs to go in it (took awhile because - we're kinda busy). One of the first crabs we bought died the day we brought it home, so we replaced it. The crabs were named Rover and Fido (why not).
Crab life was relatively uneventful. They ate, they drank, they played at night (we found out they are nocturnal), they took a bath once a week in the bathroom sink. Not a bad life for a crab.
This morning we awoke to tradgedy. Rover had killed Fido. No one could figure out why. It all seemed so senseless.
Oscar took Fido and prepared him for a burial at sea (don't have to spell that one out do I?). After said burial, he took Fido's old shell and was cleaning out what he thought were left over crab parts so he could put it back in the crabitat for future use. Then he noticed that the parts were moving. Then it all became clear - there were baby crabs inside the shell! Unfortunately, he killed a couple of them before he realized what they were. (Hermit crabs will allow themselves to be pulled apart before they allow anyone or anything to remove them from their protective shells.)
We talked about how sometimes male animals eat their own babies. We talked about how Fido (I guess we should have named HER Fida instead) fought to the death to protect her babies. We talked about how sometimes we have to be careful when we think that one thing has happened (because we rarely know exactly why things have happened) and that we sometimes cause more harm by making assumptions and moving too quickly without all the facts.
Now we have one adult male crab and one baby crab of unknown gender. Oscar said, he has a lot of work to do now(having to keep them separated until the baby gets a little bigger). It's rough being the new adoptive father of a baby crab :-).
