There’s a metric fuck tonne of crap news — daily revelations of the evil (and I use that word in its full sense) lodged at the center of American power that continues to add to the tally of human misery. But here I want to talk about assholes of a different stripe. Or species:
Hermit crabs face a uniquely competitive real estate market. They need bigger and bigger shells throughout their lives, but can’t grow these homes themselves. So they rely on castoff snail shells, and are constantly on the lookout for better properties entering the market.
A study that will be published next month in the journal Physica A found that the distribution of these shells in one hermit crab population was surprisingly similar to the distribution of wealth in human societies.
That may make hermit crabs one of the first animals known to experience wealth inequality.
Hermit crabs, perhaps because of their socialist disdain for the possibility of inheriting wealth, do not display quite the extremes of wealth inequality that human societies now display:
The team used a number called the Gini coefficient to measure overall inequality among the crabs. It found a value similar to that in small human populations, though not as great as in today’s large countries. The top 1 percent of hermit crabs owned only about 3 percent of the total shell weight, Dr. Chase and his co-authors noted: “There are no Warren Buffetts or Jeff Bezoses.”
Still, there are similarities:
While smaller crabs don’t exactly inherit their wealth from bigger crabs, the largest shells are a scarce resource that only a few crabs are privileged enough to get their claws on.
Nice to know that we aren’t the only ones wrestling with privilege.
And with that detour into “Ain’t nature grand?” territory, lets have our way with the comments, shall we?
Consider this the Escargot Open Thread.
Image: Follower of Rembrandt, A Hermit Reading, c. 1630
Patricia Kayden
NotMax
Dammit, now I want crab cakes.
West of the Rockies
Thanks for the post, Tom. I miss your voice here. But with the semester being done, perhaps you’ll appear more frequently.
Years ago, my ex and I (in the bloom of our new relationship) collected shells at the beach. Going over our bounty that evening back home, we encountered what we first thought was an insect. No, it was a tiny, tiny hermit crab. We went back to the beach and with flashlights found a promising pool. We put him in the water, and sure enough, he swiftly found a suitable shell-home. We named him Seymour. My ex began (but never finished) a children’s story on the abduction and return home of the little creature. We were so innocent and playful still. We had a lovely daughter but did not make it as a couple. Thankfully, we remain friendly.
West of the Rockies
@NotMax:
That’s what you take from this story?!?//
Baud
Shells can’t buy you happiness.
germy
germy
Chetan Murthy
@germy: A fundraiser in a wine cave is speech [since Citizens United]. Others get to “speak” right back. Suck it up, snowflake [directed at this WATB Hall, not at you].
jeffreyw
@Baud: Shells for nothin’, and chicks for free.
Spanky
When I saw “assholes” I was thinking we were going to keep with the Judi Dench thread downstairs.
Too much shell wealth becomes a liability, unlike our overlords’ wealth. Perhaps they should have to haul their billions on their backs.
Baud
Now, I ain’t sayin’ she a shell digger…
eclare
@Baud: Hahaha
chris
Aww, now I want an owl.
NotMax
@Baud
The road to shell is paved with good intentions.
;)
Aleta
Tell me that you want the kind of things
that snail shell just can’t buy
Yarrow
Shello, is it me you’re looking for?
Aleta
Do octipi compete for coconut shell shelters?
LongHairedWeirdo
Really, that’s just simple economics. Sure, hermit crabs don’t think, but they have evolution, the world’s biggest brute force analog computer, working on problems for them, and an advantage that helps individual survival can easily be implemented. And when you think about it, it’s also economics. If there’s an advantage that can be had, you expect something to try to seize it – just like you expect a lucrative business opportunity to have a swarm of players, or an especially attractive marketplace to fill quickly, etc.
The difference is, of course, hermit crabs aren’t even expected to have a concept of “justice”.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Better than me, I was thinking hermit cakes.
Aleta
Two in love can make it
take my shell and please don’t break it
Love was made for me and you.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
I’m long in wampum.
JaySinWA
@trollhattan: They seem awfully rich to me: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7656/old-hermit-cake/
Jay
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/hermit-crabs-line-up-by-size-to-exchange-shells
It’s called a vacancy chain, and it’s more like hand me downs than billionairism and winner take all capitalism.
StringOnAStick
@Jay: It’s a nice example of cooperation between creatures who are competing for the same food sources; fascinating.
Rand Careaga
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll observed this phenomenon in a terrarium thirty years ago (one hermit crab dragging another out of its shell and appropriating the premises) and suggested that this was a paradigm in miniature of the Bay Area real estate market.