20 
soft body of the crab from the sun and the predators. The crab will 
quickly retract into its protective armour when approached, dis¬ 
playing the white, purple and red on its legs and pincers. 
Like all other crabs, the shell (or other covering) on the back of 
the Hermit Crab is rigid. Thus as the crab grows, it will discard 
the 'rented' shell or bottle cover and find a larger one which it 
will occupy until the space inside gets too small. In so doing, 
these crabs do not have to find brand new shells to occupy, and are 
able to occupy previously rented coverings. In short, the shells 
are constantly being recycled, and any empty shell found on the 
ground would soon be taken up. This explains the occupation of va¬ 
rious sizes of shells by the Hermit Crab. 
At nights during the dry season, when females bear their eggs, do¬ 
zens of these adult crabs may be found on the shore where they W'ash 
their eggs in the splash in order to begin the process of develop¬ 
ment of the embryos within the tiny eggs. Thus the newly born crab 
does not often have to travel far in order to find a tiny sea shell 
washed up by the waves, or which may have been occupied by previous 
generations of crab hatchlings. 
The soft body of the slow-moving Hermit Crab is used as fish bait, 
but not for food. 
The Black Crab or "Kwab" ( Gegarcinus ruricola ) and its relative the 
,, Touloulou ,, ( Gegarcinus lateralis ) also exist at the Cabrits. The 
Black Crab, which actually has a dark purple shell, is often con¬ 
fused with the smaller "Touloulou" which is black with red at the 
sides. Both species are to be found in the dry forest and are rela¬ 
tively fast moving crabs. 
BLACK CRAB 
