Cali's Night Out

Cali the Hermit Crab had an eventful evening yesterday. He/she (who really knows?) was brought out of the cage by our neighbors who had come over to carve pumpkins (see pics here). It takes awhile for Cali to become comfortable enough to emerge from his shell and walk around the room, but once he does, he's rather quick. One of our neighbors, Chris, seemed to find favor with Cali when he hummed a low tone at his shell - Cali peeked out and began walking on Chris' hands. Overall, it was the most active we've seen Cali since the day I first brought him home.

Before lunch this morning, I was perched at our computer when I heard a "click" noise similar to a hermit crab shell hitting the side of the aquarium cage. I looked over to see if Cali was being active again today. Upon looking inside the cage, however, Cali was no where to be found...

I frantically started digging through the sand in the tank, slowly remembering that one of our neighbors said in leaving last night, "remember the crab is still out." Ah! I couldn't recall putting him back!

When Jon came home, he found me crawling around the living room with a flashlight. We scoured the apartment to no avail... Jon hugged me as I began getting exasperated and hard on myself at the thought of a crab loose in the apartment without water or food.

I returned to the bedroom to re-check some dark corners. Upon lifting up a black folder in the far back corner next to my dresser, I saw a little creature retreat quickly into its green shell. Cali! I was so relieved. I stuck him right into his shallow water dish, and he started drinking and cleaning himself immediately. He'd travelled quite a distance over the course of the night!

Since then, he's been busying himself around his cage - in the water, eating, climbing, digging. I even made him a paper hut, so he could better hide himself in a shadowed spot. Cali has a new lease on life! (Hopefully it won't lead to the detriment of the last crab we had with a "new lease"...)