The wonderful horror of hermit crabs migrating

The hills are alive with the sound of scuttling.

This video has popped up on lots of sites already, but I kind of love it and wanted to post here. Plus, it made me curious. Where are all those crabs going? And why?

The answers, upon reflection, are rather obvious. They are going to the sea. They are going there to get laid.

Yes, it's hermit crab spring break—set to an epic classical soundtrack—as thousands upon thousands of land-dwelling crabs travel to the ocean to meet other crabs and have sex with them.

Wondrous, isn't it?

Read more:
Hermit crab mating habits from the book Hermit Crabs, by Sue Fox
Annual migrations and spawning of the common land hermit crab; a research paper documenting this phenomenon as it happens in Puerto Rico. Crab love looks much the same all over the world.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: crabs • epic • mating rituals • Science • videos

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http://twitter.com/MaryKateClark Zombie Marykate

It’s like a magical cross between a classic car show and the walking dead.
Strangely beautiful.
rob_cornelius

I have a phobia of crabs… thanks a bunch for this
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Sir, I think you were given fair warning that the video of crabs was a video of crabs. ;)
  - http://www.eff.org/ deaduncledave
    
    You mean it isn’t an alternate spelling of ‘sleeping kitten?’
Brainspore

Please stop reminding me of those stupid Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I kept expecting Isildur to cut off Sauron’s finger.
The Hamster King

I challenge you to CLAWPLACH!
- signsofrain
  
  Large bet on myself in round one!
Tony Marasco

“The answers, upon reflection, are rather obvious. They are going to the sea.”

Aren’t they going AWAY from the sea? Looks like they’re headed onto land in the video?
- Beanolini
  
  The answers, upon reflection of the reflection, are rather obvious. They are going away from the sea. They went there to get laid.
http://expatriato.blogspot.com/ Muscato

Goodness. Kuru, cranial tapeworms, and hordes of scuttling tiny monsters, all in one day. This must be some kind of record for sheer discomfiting-ness, no?
http://thisisonlya.blogspot.com robcat2075

1) I wonder what evolutionary pressure induced them re-use found shells instead of growing their own?

2) I’m surprised there is not a giant cloud of seagulls swarming to pick them off that beach.

3)fun hermit crab fact from wikipedia:

“Several hermit crab species, both terrestrial and marine, use “vacancy chains” to find new shells: when a new, bigger shell becomes available, hermit crabs gather around it and form a kind of queue from largest to smallest. When the largest crab moves into the new shell, the second biggest crab moves into the newly vacated shell, thereby making its previous shell available to the third crab, and so on.”

4) That is faux classical music at best.
- timquinn
  
  #3 is awesome.
  - http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
    
    Read more: http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/of-hermit-crabs-and-housing-ma.html
http://profile.yahoo.com/MNRM3AXED3WIRVGRTQ6TR4U2EA Patti Sundstrom

Thank God I have no intention of ever visiting the Virgin Islands – yikes!!!
timquinn

“The answers, upon reflection, are rather obvious. They are going to the sea. They are going there to get laid.”

’twas ever thus.
- rausantaella
  
  Can’t help thinking of Zoidberg and his mating season.
BodyJCount

That first sentence has me imagining a remake/satire of Death Cab’s Sound of Settling.
http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

All that socializing isn’t very “hermit”-like, if you ask me.
http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

“One man only saw them and him they killed, hunted him down through the dense reed beds, trapped him, drove him mad with terror before they pulled him to pieces and ate every bloodied shred of his body. And then it was quiet again – for a little while, until they came ashore again. On that holiday beach there were hundreds of men, women and children. Food!” http://www.amazon.com/Crabs-Rampage-Guy-N-Smith/dp/0440200229
Chuck

Seems they could mate accidentally simply by all the times they crawl over one another.

“Wait — why did we come here?”

“I don’t know. But I think I’m about to lay eggs for some reason. I’d better go back.”
http://sinthetik.com/ SushiSpook

They’re trying to migrate away from the wincingly poor and ridiculous choice of music.
- Boundegar
  
  Oh dear God. I only watched the first minute, and thought the music wasn’t too bad.
  
  I just watched the second minute. It’s really that bad. But at least it wasn’t The Final Countdown.
Ed O’Connor

Cool video, but music fail. The natural beauty of crabs scuttling around doin’ their thing is neither ominous nor exhilarating. The scenes do not need to be ridiculously amped up with pseudo-Wagnerian wankery.
- vonbobo
  
  How would you like it if we threw in a mini speed boat and maybe some explosions? Yes yes?
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    Okay.
  - http://sinthetik.com/ SushiSpook
    
    Ooh! And one of the hermit crabs can have a goatee, and be a tough but misunderstood loner with a mysterious past, who teaches the plucky young she-crab how to love again?
- https://launchpad.net/~googoleyes koanhead
  
  Needs more “Yakety Sax”.
Nicky G

I really could visit Saint John every month and not feel I’m overdoing it.
Gilbert Wham

For those discomfited by Ersatz Wagner-wankery, the crabs can get their freak on much better with some classic

Porn Funk playing in another tab…
mattcornell

Wish I could hear more of that scuttling and less of this terrible music.
TalkingKoala

Creepy
http://twitter.com/wilmcdaniel wilmcdaniel

What’s that song by Jane’s Addiction?
TheMudshark

This is classical music as much as a whopper with extra cheese is a fine meal.
The video is great.
TheGnagflow61

another famous crab mass migration happens on Christmass Island:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o2J2fI59so

even a kitty involved ;-)
http://www.giraffescanswim.com/ Giraffes Can Swim

It is actually almost like something from a horror movie. They even look a bit like ants from further away at the start.
http://crissa.twu.net/ Crissa

Could you link to the video on vimeo? Embedding was blocked today.
- TheGnagflow61
  
  try this
  
  http://vimeo.com/search?q=48466065
daemonsquire

A few years ago, in northern Laos, I visited what, in the wet season, might have been a lovely waterfall in a forest, but during my visit was a dry riverbed. The riverbed, and the forest all around was filled with many thousands of daddy-long-leg spiders, skittering audibly across the ground. I’m sure the hermit crabs, underneath their bombastic score, are quite a bit louder, but I wish I’d had at least a tape recorder, if not a video cam, to share the subtle din of thousands of skittering spiders that haunts me to this day.