Hermit Hierarchy

[ataller]

I have a few small blue leg hermits in my DT, with one rather large red legged hermit, his shell is about golf ball size.

I recently bought an "electric blue" hermit, which is also the size of a golf ball, it is the hermit with the blue and black striped legs.

Anyways the new hermit immediately found my redleg and proceeded to what looked like, try and rip him out of his shell. Is this aggression a harmless show of dominance, or was the new hermit really trying to kill my original one? The new hermit was moved to the fuge, and I suppose he can stay there.


Thanks,
Adam

TLDL Do hermits of the same size kill each other?

 

[MadOTC]

My first guess would be he was after the other crabs shell. I have a large Zebra Hermit Crab, and a couple smaller blue legged crabs in my tank and they don't pay any attention to each other. I have had a couple snails come up dead and shorly after a crab moved into their shell. I didn't see it happen, but i'm guessing those 2 events were related.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

It's always best to provide extra shells to lessen the chance of this happening. It's normal for them to swap shells periodically and occasionally they like to take the shells off of others backs.