Hermit Crabs

A few days ago we found these tracks imprinted on the sands of a small section of the beach by Coul Links - see earlier post here. At the time we did think they might be crab tracks and this was confirmed when we were last at Littleferry when, in the water just below the jetty, we spotted....

....the same tracks and, busy making them, a hermit crab.

Now excuse my ignorance but I always thought that hermit crabs were very much tropical crustaceans. We used to play with them as boys on the sandy beaches of Mombasa, each selecting a crab for a race which consisted of putting the competitors into the centre of a circle and waiting to see which one reached the edge first. It was a game that sometimes took a long time.

A few minutes' research shows that several species of hermit crab are to be found in British waters but the most common is Pagurus bernhardus, the common hermit crab, though there are also the south claw hermit crab, Diogenes pugilator, and Leach’s hermit crab, Pagurus prideauxi - see the British Sea Fishing website, link here. I assume that the crab we saw was the common one.