Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
Day 37 … Day 4 … and Day 1.
Yup. Someone else spawned. Too exhausted to take a picture of it tonight, but I found a temporary tank to hold them until morning–when I will have to figure out what the heck to do with them–on top of all the others. We have officially reached the Be Careful What You Wish For stage. And…
-
Day 36.
We’re getting so close!! The first megalopa has taken a shell and climbed out of the water onto a rock!! I am so ridiculously excited!!! The final stage to becoming a fully formed hermit crab will occur when the megalopa crawls onto land and molts in the sand. That on-land molt gives him the final…
-
Day 35
So stinkin’ cute—am I right? This was taken in a small Pyrex ramekin and this little larval crabby is tenaciously hanging on to the tiniest ridge of glass that runs around the inside. They are also super fast and shoot around the surface of whatever container they are in. Today there are a total of…
-
Day Twenty-One
Three weeks. If nothing else, I’ve done that. Today was deep-clean day and I had a semi-emergency. Took almost five hours to complete because I realized (after completely wiping clean and drying it) that the left kreisel had sprung a leak. Freshwater was dribbling in. I must have wiped a little too vigorously at the…
-
Day Eighteen
Day Eighteen. Finally got a really good closeup shot today of one that I think is at Stage Four. I’m placing it side-by-side with a drawing of the various stages provided for verification. (Credit for the diagrams goes to: “The Larval Development of the Tropical Land Hermit Coenobita clypeatus (Herbst) in the Laboratory,” Author: Anthony J. Provenzano…
-
Day Seventeen.
Everyone seems fine. Minimal losses still. More sheds today but just late bloomers to Stage Four, I think. No pictures to share tonight—I’m just barely keeping up, but we’re still on track and there’s nothing new about their development to report. I’m starting to put a lot of energy and research into the next stage.…
-
Day Twelve
Day Twelve. This is a slow-motion video capture that shows the legs and swimmerets furiously swimming, and then right before the video ends (at about 40 seconds), one of the shed exos drifts past. It looks like an eyeless, opaque, ghost zoea. I’ve been trying to capture one on film for days and am thrilled…
-
Day Eight, September 20, 2018
Saw a few sheds today, but I think they were just a couple of stragglers still making stage two—maybe some of Artemis’s later eggs. A few more deaths today, too, but still only a handful. And it was a stressful day for the larvae because I did a full clean of the kreisel tanks. They…
-
Day Seven
Day Seven, still at Stage Two. I had the idea today that if I started far away and moved in closer with the camera, it might be able to better focus as it came closer. Plus starting two feet away is a good reminder of just how very tiny they are. I’m liking this way…
-
Waiting to spawn
September 10, 2018: My larval setup is now fully prepped in readiness for the hermit crabs spawning which I hope will occur either tomorrow or overnight tonight. Here are the specs: 35% salinity, verified with my handy dandy refractometer (freshly calibrated) There are 2 1/2 gallons of saltwater in each of the side-by-side kreisels. I…
Got any book recommendations?