How Long Does It Take for a Hermit Crab to Fully Grow?
Kept in captivity, hermit crabs can live a maximum of 15 years but have an actual average lifespan between one and four years. In the wild, hermit crabs live much longer, surviving to an average of 30 years. Does this Spark an idea?
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Reproduction
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Hermit crabs mate externally when the male deposits sperm that the female absorbs into her body with secretions. The female lays her eggs within days or months after fertilization. The eggs appear in a ribbon-like grouping that remain attached to the female for approximately one month before the mother deposits the eggs in salt water to hatch.
Early Life
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When hermit crab eggs hit salt water, they immediately burst open to produce small larvae-like swimming creatures called zoea. They develop by molting in stages, each lasting about a week. At each molt, they grow larger and add more appendages. Life as a zoea lasts anywhere from 40 to 60 days or longer, when the zoea molt into a postlarval stage called a megalops. While in the water, they search for shells to live in. After another month or more, they metamorphose into juvenile land hermit crabs.
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Maturity
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Juvenile hermit crabs start to spend more time on land and eventually bury themselves in the sand to molt, during which time they shed their exoskeletons. It takes around 10 days for a new exoskeleton to harden. At the juvenile stage, the crabs now fully resemble hermit crabs and live only on land in borrowed shells. By the second year, most species have passed through a "puberty molt" and developed the structures necessary for reproduction and can be considered adults. Hermit crabs continue to grow and seek larger shells in which to make their home.
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