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Terrestrial Hermit Crabs Learning Social Tricks
An anonymous reader writes "When it comes to abandoned snail shells that hermit crabs expropriate as mobile homes, size matters, for room to grow, room for eggs, and protection from predators. UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Mark Laidre found that terrestrial hermit crabs on the Pacific shore of Costa Rica congregate in aggressive swap meets where one crab is forced from a relatively large shell, whereupon the rest trade up (one loser and multiple winners, pretty good odds). The loser gets the smallest shell, which means likely doom. Laidre and his colleagues note that most hermit crabs live in the ocean, where there are usually enough abandoned shells to go around so most can live, well, hermit-like lives without much interaction with fellow crabs. Not so on land, at least in Costa Rica."
The summary introduces the word "learning" which is not in the article. The behavior is certainly interesting. But is there any evidence it is learned through experience rather than being inherited?
For a second there, I thought the biology tag said biography, and I got really scared. You don't need to know about my tricks yet.
What do we want?
SLIGHTLY LARGER SHELLS!
When do we want them?
WHENEVER THREE OR MORE OF US CONGREGATE!!
It's like a reality show, for crabs. 'Win, and you keep your shell. Lose, and you get the SMALLEST SHELL, and everyone else goes up a level. You all ready? OK, GO.'
Classic redistribution of wealth.
overlords, and point out as a Slashdot poster, I will be unsuited for their underground salt mines.
Hermit crabs are the animal kingdom’s most dickish neighbors
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Their swarm computing article (pdf link in the journal Complex Systems) is rather interesting.
Somewhat like social security. Each generation creates a larger shell, only to have the largest one ripped away from them by current retires when social security collapses. At the end of which, the current workforce get the remaining scraps.
Everyone knows if you turn a few 'social' tricks you stand a good chance of getting crabs.
I used to go to Costa Rica during the winters when I was a kid, and I loved watching the hermit crabs. There are TONS of them there. All over the beaches. Crawling in the sand going down to the beach. I actually watched them hijacking shells from each other (although I'd play the good guy and get their shells back sometimes).
A stronger crab with a small damaged shell was trying to pry out a weaker one with new shell. He was probably weak from days of siege. I had to apply quite some force to tear them apart. After a brief isolation under toy buckets I set them free and the stronger crab jumped on his prey again, this time literally getting his foot in the door (they use the larger claw as a door).
There is a nice beach restaurant in Samara, Costa Rica, that I can recommend if you want to see them congregate in huge numbers, right on the sandy restaurant floor.
Hermit crabs were probably betting their shell long before the human race was even able to walk...
That means we are the one imitating the crabs here...
I, for one, welcome our new Hermit Crab overload!
/. never removes anything ever.
You must be new here.
Welcome to Slashdot - home of provocative thought, fun information, and old memes that have the half-life of commercially-made fruitcake.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/16/1256226/scientologists-force-comment-off-slashdot
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
That does not qualify.
While /. removed the copyrighted material, what it replaced it with was a textbook example of the Streisand effect. Multiple links to the material and organizations that fought against the plaintiff.
Certainly not a victory for those who were seeking censorship in the first place.
Looks like the hermit crabs discovered democracy. :P
We are envious of what you have acquired, therefore we'll all team up and seize it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Lets all vote on who gets kicked out of their shell so the rest of society can get an upgrade. That damn 1% doesn't deserve the largest shell.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I would expect administrators to remove this kind of racist rubbish from the site. No wonder the poster did it as anonymous coward. This kind of attitude has no place in civilized society
I concur. I've been hearing about Niggerbuntu for years and to date there is absolutely nothing; not even a beta. There's nothing worse than over-hyped vaporware in my opinion.
Duke Nukem Forever may have been a bust but at least they released it.
I have been reading slashdot for years. Racism is not "provocative thought" nor fun. It is just pathetic
Think "old meme" here...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The crabs perfected social tricks millions of years ago. It is WE who lean from them!
Was it removed? Yes.
It counts, and it was the lowest point is the history of this site. They caved, nothing more, nothing less.
It's like nature's musical chairs... OF DEATH!
I fail to see how this has anything at all to do with evolution. What controls are in place to determine whether this was previously undiscovered behavior of this species?
have been getting rougher and rougher each year, I am not surprised that even the crabs are having a hard time keeping their assets intact............
From Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Dad-a-chack, dum-a-chum!
Taking the first step towards pervasive censorship always sounds so benevolent since free speech will always be used in some difficult to endure ways, but I would rather have a website full of racists and trolls than lose that free speech. There are plenty of other websites out there where the powers decide what you can and cannot say, The Escapist is a good example of a heavily policed site where goodthink prevails, but I doubt you'll draw much traction on Slashdot. However I fully support your right to express your belief on this forum.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Was it removed? NO.
Caved my ass.
Did you see their response to the DMCA takedown request? The copyrighted data in question was removed from the site itself, and a long explanation, that wonderfully explained the DMCA, Scientology, its greatest and most vocal opponent on the Internet at the time, and how to fight against laws like this was put in its place.
The specific data, OT III, was made available in legal ways and even more attention was garnered than before. Streisand effect wonderfully executed.
I would agree with you if the comment was simply removed and /. acted like it never existed. Far from it...
No mortgages are involved 'cause if there were you can be certain that someone on Wall Street would try to bundle them up and sell them.
It's the simple, primitive nature of coercion: injustice. Unfortunately it occurs across all levels of life, from the primitive hermit crab to the primitive human being.
Does the SEC know of this?
Did you see their response to the DMCA takedown request?
Yes... as linked above, they removed content. I'm not sure how you don't understand that. Content that was there... and now is not... QED removed.
Anything is true once you start adding constaints.
I'm the fastest person in the world. If you don't count people who run more than once a week. And aged between 40 and 45. And have brown hair. And has a callus on the right foot. And... and... and...
This was a pre-Internet, left wing/anarchic/anti-religion British version of Peanuts. I wish I had kept the books...anyway, it featured the Pooliverse. The eyeballs in the sky
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Reminds me of what's happening in Paris, as the super-rich are fleeing to neighboring countries ahead of the upcoming 75% tax. This is causing the prices of luxury Paris homes to decline in value, allowing the less-affluent to afford them, who then sell their former homes to people further down and... well, you get the idea.
:)
Now, if those crabs were here in the U.S., 99% of the crabs would be stuck in the same size shell for the past 20 years while a couple of crabs had gargantuan shells (as well as many "vacation" shells on a variety of coasts). But at least they'd be creating jobs for the other crabs... by having them clean their spare shells or something.
You're being pedantic.
Content was not removed. If you delete a file from a directory, and then place a symbolic link to the same file, is the data really gone?
When the Capricans force us from our planet and they all trade up, we may end up on Taurus. Either that or we'll all join a Occupy Earth movement... Wasn't there a tv show about that ;^)
It's good that the crabs re-use their natural resources as best as they can.
Being a crazy biologist, I thought it would be fun to see how hermit crabs react to the availability of an unexpected big Rolls Royce shell. They'd been congregating near the showers, so I put it there. At night there was a seething mass of hermits swapping. Shells are at a premium, and I'd noticed earlier that the smallest one was making do with a discarded toothpaste tube cap. It looked very sad.
Well, the next morning there was no sign of the orgy. No hermit crabs to be seen, no discarded shells, no debris. But in one corner of the shower stall, there was the toothpaste tube cap, no longer needed.