Animals are mostly social, and they typically congregate together to protect each other, to mate or to gang up on bigger prey. 

But a University of California, Berkeley study a few years ago found something unusual in an animal that doesn’t normally socialize with others.

Terrestrial hermit crabs, it was found, have a social agenda that’s more self-serving: they get together to kick another crab out of its shell so they can move on up in the world into a larger, more spacious home. 

Hermit crabs are self-contained, self-possessed. They are animals that survive on their own, but even hermit crabs need others in order to have more room to grow.

They must group together in order to find new shells that doesn’t leave their most vulnerable side exposed. 

Believe it or not, there are things we can learn from hermit crabs.

Major Sources For This Episode Include:
Mary Akers Interview April 14, 2021
Carol Ann Ormes Interview April 17, 2021

Host and Writer: Peg Fong
Director: Callie O’Reilly
Theme music: Ian Lefeuvre and Ari Posner
Engineer: Geoff Devine
Producers: Debbie O’Reilly and Guillermo Serrano
Executive Producer: Terry O’Reilly