Pepper Molted!

So, the last time I cleaned my crabitat, about 2 weeks ago, Pepper burrowed down in the forest bedding. I thought he was just chilling out or something, because none of the other crabs were going into the bedding. Usually when a crab begins to molt, the other crabs can smell it and will try to dig up the crab and eat their exoskeleton. That is why molting crabs should be isolated. However, I did not think he was molting, because he showed little signs of an impending molt. Anyhow, I kept checking on him every night, putting my finger over the soil that he was under and I was getting him pushing back, so I didn't worry about it. I was just letting him do his thing. I thought he might have been a little stressed from the tank cleaning.

Well, yesterday night when I got home from work, I saw a hole where he was and left over crab legs from either a molt or a hostile engagement with the other crabs. I looked all over the tank and couldn't spot him out. So, I sat down to my computer to rest my eyes, cause those crabs are pretty good at camouflage. Then I turned my head and I saw him sitting on the centerpiece. The forest bedding had stained his shell brown and so he totally blended in with the centerpiece. He is still very pink, but his color before the molt was a pretty light pink too. Pepper is my little Purple Pincher. He is quite a strong and healthy little guy and quite the speed demon when let out of the tank to roam. Anyhow, he is fine and everyone is good. So that counts three molts that I have been through within the past 8 months. Two with Crabby in which the molts were a month apart (but he was regenerating a pincher claw for the second molt) and one with Pepper.

Speaking of Crabby, I have seen no sign of him and my roommates and I have continuously searched for him. One of my roommates thinks that she might have kicked him outside by accident. This may have happened a day before I noticed he was missing. She saw a shell near the edge of the front door and she said that she thought it was a garden snail, but didn't look closely, so she just swooped it out the door with her foot. Where she was pointing to on the door jam seemed like it was the outside part of the door jam. So, if she kicked a snail shell from there, then it was probably a snail and not crabby. Well, we will see.

As for the newer Purple Pincher, I still have not come up with a name for him. I'm still observing his behavior to come up with a name. Rigby likes to hangout with him though, actually since I got the two new crabs, Rigby has gotten a lot more social and has really interacted with both of them. Before the new kids moved in, he used to seclude himself from the other crabs. Strange. Oh well, at least he has friends now and isn't a social outcast of the crabitat.