Hermit crabs don’t make their own shells, they rely on empty ones left behind by sea snails. 🐚

The Nature Educator explains how sea snails spend their lives building spiral homes from calcium carbonate, expanding them layer by layer as they grow. When a snail’s life ends, its shell becomes the perfect shelter for a hermit crab’s soft, spiraled body, offering mobile protection in a harsh environment. Unlike most crabs, hermit crabs can’t grow their own armor, so they depend on these abandoned shells to survive. As they grow, they must search for larger shells to move into, often competing with others for a new home.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.