A hermit crab in the palm of my hand; a little over the width of one finger. He's in a bluish shell, opening upward; he's holding both chelipeds in the opening and there's also one leg visible, up against the edge. The rest is hidden. GrainyHand hermits choose shells into which they can retreat completely, showing no sign of occupancy, so this one is already feeling more confident. The chelipeds are brown, with closely-packed pale blue raised dots. On the outside of the shell, on the left, there's a limpet.

Everything comes to an end sometime. I've run out of good hermit photos, so I'm pausing the Daily Hermit posts. Here's a GrainyHand, deciding whether it's safe to come out of the shell. He's halfway there. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

View of a hermit face, with the open mouth clearly visible. Bottom to top: two orange maxillipeds; like little legs, these manipulate and brush the collected food. In case of loss of the chelipeds, they can take over the job of collecting food. Above them, two pairs of smaller maxillipeds; these are bluish brown here. They, together, tear and shake and brush the food to remove inedible pieces. All of these appendages are hairy; the setae are sensory organs. And above these, in the centre, an oval shape, white with a brown opening in the centre. This has a shape sort of (use your imagination) a dog head with two front legs spread wide as he leaps at you. This is where the jaws are, where the food will finally be crushed and broken and swallowed. And above all that are the eyes on their stalks, the orange antennae, and antennules. The hermit, what we see of the rest of him, is olive green with pale blue dots. The white and orange shell fills the background, except for a bit of green, sea lettuce colour.

Say ah! A "tonsil" level view of a Grainy Hand hermit. 3 sets of maxillipeds, clearly visible; behind these are small chewing and sorting tools, and at the back the strong, crushing jaws, or mandibles. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

This is a small Hairy hermit in the white plastic dishpan they spend the house-cleaning hour in. There are a couple of empty shells beside her; she may investigate them or climb on them, or just ignore them and go looking for the treats she knows will be provided. She has good memories of the last time in this pan. These are intertidal hermits, so it's in their genes to expect changeable conditions, with the rising and falling tide. She's mostly olive-green, with dark eyes. The antennae and antennules are blurry; they're in rapid motion, maybe scoping out where the food will be. She wears a brightly-coloured shell, new and uncolonized, so far, by algae; it's in a sort of plaid pattern of orange dots and lines on white. A dogwinkle shell, maybe; they're extremely variable.

Weekend campout. Tank living means weekly disruptions for cleaning. Moved to a pan of clean water the first time, hermits are upset. Food and hiding places help. From then on, they're ok; they remember. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A large hermit, facing the light coming from the left, with legs and chelipeds separated so that the textures and shapes can be seen clearly. They are covered with raised knobs, pale blue against the paler green base colour. The lower edges of the carpus and merus, the second and third segments of the legs and chelipeds (counting from the tip) are sharply toothed. There are few hairs on the legs, except up near the body, where they're long and catch the light. The antennae and antennules are orange; the right antenna is stretched out so that the light shines through it, showing that it is a dotted line, white and orange. At the top of the left antenna, we can see the shorter, orange acicle; it, like the body and the upper thighs, is also hairy. These hairs are part of the sensory apparatus. Eyes, deep red, maxillipeds (mouthparts) orange. He wears a heavy-looking shell, white inside, dark brown, rough on the outside. Background, blue with a blob of floating brown algae. And marine snow, drawing short, bright lines as it falls.

Textures; knobs and sawteeth and hairs... A Grainy Hand hermit in the sunlight. An old friend; I named him "Big Blue". #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

For today's Daily Hermit, go look at this: I'm green with envy.
youtu.be/js7BPu7-yIc?... #DailyHermit #Invertebrates #HermitCrabs

A brownish hermit in a dark brown shell. She stands on a curved blade of eelgrass looking up into the light, waving her antennules, tasting the water. The antennae are also busy, moving too fast at the moment for the camera to capture them. Behind her, there's a limpet; it carries a group of coiled, white calcareous tubeworms. There's something else on the front end; it looks like a slipper snail. Looking closely, you can see that the limpet's front end is slightly raised off the eelgrass; it's on the move. There's something living on the hermits shell, apart from the algae that encrusts everything, even the hermit herself; something small and round. Life underwater is layered.

Just another hermit on eelgrass. With a loaded limpet for company. These intertidal hermits prefer eelgrass for safety after a molt, as a food source when it's coated with diatoms, & as a viewing platform. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Close-up of a hermit crab's face, showing the eye, the eye stalks, the antennules, and the antennal acicle. The eye, apparently looking directly at us, looks like a glass globe with a black line running around it just below the meridian. The centre is filled with sparkly bits, and there's a black dot that looks as though it floats above these sparkles. To our eyes, it looks like an eye with a lens. In actual fact, there are thousands of ommatidia, and each has its own microscopic lens. The antennules, between the eye stalks, are sensory organs, like the longer antennae, but extremely complex; we can see rings and spikes, and hairs on the spikes. On this side of the eye we're looking at, sprouting off from the base of the long antenna, there's another sensory organ; like a mini-antenna, a bit longer than the eye stalk, with its own extra spikes and hairs. It's called the antennal acicle.

Deceptive; it looks like a vertebrate's eye; it's not. Hermits have compound eyes, and thousands of lenses. Wild guess: is the black spot in the centre camouflage, an imitation of a vertebrate's eye lens? #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Peaceful scene. Two small hermits, on the left, one facing left, the other right. The one facing right watches a much larger Hairy checking out a vacant shell. The empty lies with the opening slanted upwards, the shell's tip off-screen to the right. The hermit looking it over stands above it, facing us; three legs reach around the outside of the shell, and the small cheliped pokes around inside. The shell looks, to us, too big for this hermit, but he knows best; if he can lift it and roll it over, then it will depend on how he likes the inside fittings. The shell does have a broken bit; usually that's not a problem. All three hermits are yellowish brown, hairy, with green antennae and dark eyes. Their shells all, including the empty one, are stained with green algae. The hermit on the far left wears a mudsnail shell, long and pointed, dark brown; his pal's shell is shorter, rounder. The large hermit's shell is mostly hidden behind him; smooth and round, it could be a moon snail's shell. The empty is more angular. The floor is clean sand. Background, out of focus, colours of water, seaweed, white shells.

Everyday scene. Three Hairy hermits just hanging out, as they do, the day's excitements (food, mostly) done with. One investigates a vacant shell; it's far too big for the other two. They watch life go by. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A Hairy hermit wears a beautiful shell with the top spirals open to view, but very neatly; smooth, white edges, and a clean trench inside. The rest of the shell is round, patterned in brown and cream lines radiating out from the edge of the spiral. At the inner end of the peeled trench, the hermit's uropods, those little appendages that anchor him inside the shell, are just visible. The hermit is mostly olive-green; he's facing an assortment of shells (just in case he might want a change), antenna stretched out, checking something. The shells around him are Hairy hermit favourites; long, pointed mud snail shells. There are three of them, in brown and white stripes. Another shell behind him looks like a moon snail shell; white and globular. He's on sand mixed with broken bits of shell. There's a pale, whitish anemone just off to the left; all we see are the tentacles.

Going topless. The shell, that is. Crabs break snails with their pincers, and peel back the shell to dig out the meat inside. This shell is new, not yet coated by algae; but it exposes the hermit's bottom. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A Hairy hermit stares directly at the camera from the other side of the glass wall. Black eyes lifted for a clear view, green and white antennae spread wide to both sides, as if to capture all possible information, the large cheliped lifted towards us, the other and the legs — hairy, with blue and white patches — balancing him on either side. He wears a dark brown shell. He's mostly brown, darker on the body, lighter on the large cheliped.Light glows through the eye stalks, brown fading to yellow. He stands on a mix of sand and broken bits of shell. The background is blue-grey; the water of the tank, with specks of marine snow swirling about.

Hi, out there! Hermits in a tank like to sit right up against the glass, watching the big world outside. Sometimes I wonder what they think of us and our frantic dashing about. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

The hermit crab wears a rounded shell, orange with rows of black dots and lines. The anemone she's chosen for a resting place is half closed down; only a few translucent tentacles are extended. The anemone's column is a pale greyish blue, completely covered with tubercules, narrow at the base, and with a knob on the end. Closed down like this, the anemone almost looks like a sofa cushion. The colours in the photo look right; the eelgrass is bright green, the anemone grey-blue, the bits of shell white, the orange shell as found. So the hermit's colours are correct, if unusual; her legs are the normal olive-green, the patches on her legs the usual blue and white, but her body is pale ice-blue, almost the colour of her blue blood. There's a second hermit off to the right, hidden behind a semi-transparent bit of brown algae.

Looks so comfy! Like a big, cushioned chair. A Hairy hermit, dressed in her best designer outfit, imported from Africa, poses in an anemone's mouth. The anemone doesn't seem to mind, and won't sting her. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

This is a Grainy-Hand hermit; freshly molted, with all his colours bright and clean. He hangs facing downwards on the green sea lettuce, as if looking below, spying out possible available shells, or watching for crabs. His legs and chelipeds are orangey-brown, with those baby blue raised dots. His antennae are bright orange, the eyestalks brown, the eyes red. His body is green, mottled with darker and lighter spots. In this position, her legs and other appendages are all visible; the first two legs are for walking. Then there's a shorter leg that's used to haul her in and out of the shell (once she chooses one). Behind that, at her waist, are the last of what we call legs; these are used for cleaning and grooming. And then, way down at the end of the coiled abdomen, are the uropods, about as long as the 3rd legs. These are used to grip the shell.

Another freshly molted hermit, waiting in safety while his skin stretches & hardens. Here in the tank there are few predators; no fish, no gulls, no octopuses. But there's always a crab or two down below. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A Hairy hermit in a white shell — looks like a grooved whelk shell — examines a slightly larger shell, also white, but smooth. It lies mouth down on the sand now; he will roll it over, lift it, poke his chelipeds deep inside, roll it again ... Maybe he'll try it on. And then, he'll decide; keep the old shell, or walk off in this new suit. The hermit is olive green, white, and blue; recently molted; his colour are fresh and clean. He leans into the new shell, holding it with all four legs and both chelipeds, ready for action. Background; algae, dark green, brown, yellow (that's old kelp), and deep red (probably Turkish towel).

The everlasting search for new togs. It's not only after a molt that a hermit decides to switch shells. You never know; this one might be more roomy, lighter, more comfortable; better check it out! #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

This tiny hermit is standing on the acorn barnacle, looking directly at us. This photo has a shallow depth of field, so his eyes, knees, and the front rim of the hermit's shell are in focus, as are one outer plate of the barnacle, and off to the far right, a tiny copepod. Holmie's legs are brick red, with white, sparkly patches. His antennae are green and white dotted lines, the eye-stalks are brick red, the eyes striped black and white. His shell is brown, with patches of green algae. The barnacle is feeding; the opening between the interior plates is partly open; although they're out of focus, the cirri (legs it uses to capture food) make a blur above the opening. Off to the right side are several thin, white tentacle-like things; two have a fluff of white at the tip. Mystery critters. And at the far right, there's a copepod. Female; she trails her eggs along behind her body. She has two short tentacles, and one eye; it's red. Copepods are major food sources for marine animals; the barnacle would love to catch this one. The hermit won't. Background is black; the photo was taken at 2 AM, with flash.

Midnight activity; a Holm's hermit on a feeding barnacle. With a pregnant copepod and something unidentfiable; white tentacles with fuzzy tops. Many marine critters are more active at night. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Tending to the brood. Video of a Hairy hermit crab with her eggs. #HermitCrabs #DailyHermit #Invertebrates #IntertidalInvertebrates #Nature youtu.be/4xfEJB6vgow?...

A small Hairy hermit resting on green sea lettuce, facing left, eyes looking up at us. She carries a mass of pinkish eggs on the left side of her abdomen; I counted 50 in the first few rows before I gave up. She holds onto them with feathery, leg-like appendages, called pleopods; a couple are faintly visible at the front end of the mass of eggs. This mother is pale brown, hairy, with white patches on her legs, green and white dotted-line antennae, bits of orange on the antennules, between her black-rimmed eyes. She seems to be missing the smaller cheliped; a good reason to hide out among the seaweeds while she's burdened with eggs. She wears a brown mudsnail shell, a long, narrow spiral.

Big responibility. Hairy hermit, in berry, with her hundred or so eggs. She'll tend to them for weeks, moving them in and out of the shell, washing and grooming them, until they hatch and float away. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Here's a video taken in my home aquarium a dozen years ago. Hermit adventure. Watch till the end. #Hermits #DailyHermit
youtu.be/tt8e6bS5h8o?...

Two Hairy hermits, "Furry" and his chosen mate. He looks like a plush, wooly toy; furry from his eyestalks to the tip of the shell he wears. Even the antennae are coated with this brown growth. Only his eyes are clear. Zooming in, the "fur" seems to be made up of individual stalks; they're probably hydroids. "Furry's" girlfriend wears a clean, dark mud-snail shell; the bit of a leg we can see is also fuzz-free. She's mostly hidden, though, beneath her mate. The pair are in a white bowl, waiting for transfer to the aquarium. They just arrived, holding tightly together, from the beach. It's spring-time, the season for young love.

"Furry". Like Grandad, this hermit wears a coat of epibionts, but he's younger & more recently colonized; hydroids cover both the hermit & his shell. He clutches his mate; she's fuzz-free. As are his eyes. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

An old Hairy hermit, recognizable by the dotted-line antennae, the blue knees, and his choice of a shell too small to hide in. Under all the fuzz, he's olive green; there's one clean patch on the thigh of his larger cheliped. Otherwise, he's coated with brown fuzz, especially covering all his spiky hairs. His antennae seem to be clean, except that the paler dots that alternate with the deep green ones are here brown, fading to orange. There's brown on the eye stalks, too, but the eye facing us is bright and shiny; yellowish, between black lines, with a black central spot. His third leg, the little one that he uses to move in and out of the shell, is exposed; it's even fuzzier than the other legs. None of this fuzz bothers him; it may even serve as camouflage, and the hitchhikers benefit from the exposure to a variety of food sources. He wears, as Hairies do, a small shell; he needs it to protect his abdomen, but when threatened, he relies on speed rather than on retreating into the shell for protection. This shell is cleaner than he is; he's changed shells since his last molt. There's a bit of green and brownish algae on the shell, but the end and bottom are white. Substrate, sand. He's in the corner of the aquarium; the outer wall is seen on the right. He likes to sit right up close to the glass, where he can watch what goes on in the big world outside.

An old friend; I call him Grandad. Less frequent molts of older hermits allow epibionts to settle in, & he wears a furry coat of diatoms or hydroids. No problem; but he always keeps his eyes scraped clean. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Another small, barnacle-sized hermit. He's climbing on an old clamshell populated by acorn barnacles; three (visible) are alive, as can be seen by the present interior plates, closed over the mouth; one is just a shell that has been cleaned out completely. Specks of brown algae still grow on the outside of all the barnacles. The hermit wears a round, dark shell; another barnacle, smaller than the rest, has fastened itself to the shell. This one has spots of green algae. Hermie is mostly orange, with white tips to his large cheliped. His carapace is olive green, the antennae are dotted white and green lines. Dark eyes, orange and white eye stalks. He's reaching out towards one of the live barnacles; no job for him there, yet. There's another hermit present. All that can be seen of her are the two eyes and an antenna, down at the bottom of the photo, partly hidden by a bit of brown alga (looks like kelp). Green in the background is sea lettuce.

Barnacle, hermit, barnacles. This hermit's a Hairy, serving both as barnacle transport and barnacle clean-up crew. Essential services.#VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

Experimental photo, using folded book pages as a frame, looking towards the computer screen. The book pages make 5 petal-shaped frames, radiating from the bottom of the photo. In the background, an upright rectangle contains the photo of a tree against a blue sky. And in front of that, there's a Hairy hermit, facing left. He wears a dark, round shell, extending beyond the tree/sky frame. In the centre of the one-shot collage the hermit looks at us; his eyes are blue-green, with black lines top and bottom, and a black dot in the centre. One antennule is raised, as if in greeting. He's a light yellowish brown; the chelipeds are in plain sight; the legs are half-hidden behind the book pages. The book was the "Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest" encyclopedia.

Accidental triple exposure. Looking through folded pages of a book, the camera caught the switch of screen saver photos. Hermit, tree, sky, marine life book, tech; we sink or swim together. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

A hermit on a colony of small acorn barnacles. He's facing us, legs spread wide, the large cheliped stretched forward, the smaller one reaching down into a barnacle shell. Three of the barnacles are living; their interior plates are closed over their mouths. The barnacles in front are empty cups, cleaned out down to the bare white walls; hermits' work done. The hermit is brown, with white patches on his legs and chelipeds. His antennae are green and white dotted lines. The eyes are black. He wears a small shell, pale blue with spots of green algae; from this angle it looks like a whelk shell with a wide siphon canal. The empty barnacles will soon be occupied, by anemones or worms, or even fishes.

Holms' hermit, on the job. When a barnacle dies, hermits quickly clean it out, removing the interior plates, scrubbing the walls, leaving the place ready for occupancy by other critters. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

This is a small Grainy-hand hermit in a large, white shell. The shell wall is thick, rounded as if shaped by long rolling along the sand. Its mouth (and it looks like a mouth, a fish mouth open to swallow the hermit) is wide, leaving ample space around the hermit inside. She is half in, half out of the shell; most of her abdomen is visible, as are the two non-walking legs on her left side; the first is used to move her in and out of the shell; it's outside the shell here. Her legs and chelipeds are stretched forward, as if she were trying to pull herself out of the shell. (She's not: going back to the occasion, she was just grabbing some food, and then retreated into the shell.) She's olive green, except for the blue freckles and the orange antennae, antennules, and acicles. And her red eyes. She's surrounded by shells, some entire, some broken. There's another Grainy-hand in one of them; we can see his antennae and eye stalks.

Living in a cave? Or is that a hungry fish? I wonder; what was she thinking? That shell is far too big for her! Or maybe not; she flips it over and walks away. She's stronger than she looks. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

The hermit is decorated in dramatic colours; deep red, pure white, and yellow stripes on the legs and chelipeds, red and white eye stalks, with those pure black eyes, one looking in our direction, the other pointing away. The antennae are a dull orange, as are the acicles (that spike this side of the antenna). He's wearing a moon snail shell; these are almost perfectly round shells, moon-like, with a large mouth. They're a favourite shell for many hermits. The front edge of this one is chipped. Sometimes it seems as though the sharp edges of a broken shell would be uncomfortable, but the hermits are more concerned with the condition of the inside of the shell. The floor of the tank is covered with pieces of white shell. There are a couple of empty, blue-black mussel shells, and a piece of a bryozoan colony, little rectangular boxes, stuck to the glass at the lower right.

Black-eyed hermit, making a mess. He's in a tidy tank in a local aquarium; so neat and clean he is, but look at the snowstorm under his shell; he's stirring up the sand in search of edibles. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

A Grainy-hand hermit facing us, in bright light, and recently molted, so all his colours are fresh. Olive green chelipeds and legs have baby-blue freckles; the antennae, antennules, large maxillipeds, and ACICLES are bright orange; the eye stalks are a tamer orange, with brick-red eyes. The smaller mouthparts are a darker blue, as is the side of his cephalothorax; this also has baby-blue spots. The top of his cephalothorax, in this light, looks almost white. The shell he wears, white on the inside, orange on the bottom, has a coating of algae on the topside; orange and brown and hints of blue. The smooth underside shows that the shell has had plenty of use, so that the algae and other markings have been rubbed off against the sand. The hermit holds a white grain of sand in his smaller mouthparts; he'll brush any edibles off it before he drops it. He stands on fine sand; there's a bit of red algae on the left, and eelgrass behind him. About those acicles; more, later.

Just because he's beautiful. Colorful Grainy-hand hermit. And — I just learned this word today — he has orange antennae, antennules, and ACICLES; that curved, hairy spike above the antenna. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit #Invertefest

A stack of hermits. 4 are plainly visible; at least two are down below in the shadows. Clockwise, from top right: a hermit in a grey shell, half hidden behind eelgrass, looking off to the right, antenna raised vertically. A larger hermit in a brown shell with the tip peeled, exposing the inner spiral. He's a Hairy hermit, with olive-green legs and chelipeds; the green and white dotted-line antennae are stretched out towards us and to the right. A large Grainy-hand hermit in a white dogwinkle shell. She's mostly hidden beneath the shell; we see one blue-freckled cheliped and two legs, as well as the bright orange antenna. A brown Hairy in another white shell, this one with a good view off to the left. The group is standing on rocks and other shells (some of which may contain more hermits). Eelgrass and other seaweeds, red, brown, and red, wrap around everything. Down under the red algae on the left, a green shore crab hides, looking a bit cowed. Acorn barnacles, the smallest intertidal barnacles, on the rock in front give an idea of the size. One barnacle is about the size of the eyes and face of the hermits left and right.

Block party. A half-dozen hermits spending the afternoon together; the ones on top get a good view, but everyone benefits: comfort, companionship, shared information, safety. Maybe more; they would know. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #DailyHermit #Invertefest

Two Grainy-Hand hermits stand on top of a propped-up, old half-clamshell. Both are wearing clean shells; the one in the centre has a cream-tinted, angular dogwinkle shell, shiny new. The hermit on the left wears a round, white shell. The one on the left looks towards his friend, eyes slightly tilted, one antennae lifted to touch the other's shell. He seems to be asking a question. Both hermits are olive-green, with pale blue freckles, red eyes, and orange antennae. The clamshell has barnacles on both the outside and inside: it has been lying empty for a long time. Background; aquarium equipment; the pump. And behind that, an open window with greenery. Curious thing; I never see the hermits looking out that way; too boring, it seems. They like to watch the activity on this side.

"How's it going, buddy?" Hermits are social critters. They spend hours hanging out with their friends, preferably on a high spot where they can watch the world go by. Two Grainy-hands meet on a clamshell. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A brightly-coloured hermit, peeking out of the vertical tip of a tube. She's red, with banded legs and chelipeds, orange and red; the tips are orange and yellow. She waves her legs above her tube; they're not used for walking. Her cephalothorax is hidden inside the tube. The tube, a brownish calcareous structure which used to house a worm, is fixed to the substrate, coiled at the base, but stretching straight up at a 90° angle to the coil at the open end, where the hermit lives. Surrounding life, out of focus; orange anemones, encrusting sponge, green algae.

Homebody. This tiny hermit lives in a tubeworm's empty tube rather than in a snail shell. She never leaves the tube; her mate visits her wearing a piece of broken tube. An uncoiled abdomen fits in tidily. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

Two hermits on top of an old abalone shell, their backs to us. The female, behind and slightly below the male, is out of focus, except for her shell. He wears a smooth, globe-shaped, green-stained shell; hers is a mudsnail shell, corrugated, black with green specks. Both hermits are a yellowish brown. We see his antennae, dotted green and white lines spread out to both sides; the eyes on their stalks; the antennules, one waving about, blurred, the other raised, as if in celebration. His legs have white joints and are outlined by hairs glowing in the light. They sit framed between eelgrass blades, yellow and green. On either side, on the abalone shell, are two small, whitish anemones. There's a slipper snail on the male hermit's shell; it's similar in shape to a limpet, but a bit lopsided, and the tip is slightly hooked.

Quality time. A Hairy hermit couple hangs out together, sitting in the sunlight, letting time pass. He holds her by the rim of her shell; she rests quietly, taps his cheliped when it's time for action. #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit

A green shore crab measures, at most, 5 cm. across the carapace. Here, a hermit is balanced on the tip of one of these crab's legs. The hermit wears a brown and white periwinkle shell; of the hermit herself, all we can see are three legs, two above, waving about, one below, holding onto the crab's dactyl. The crab's leg is white, with brown spots. In the photo are four segments of the leg, each one at least twice the size of the hermit in her shell. The dactyl is narrow and pointed; the next segment has spiky hairs on both sides; on the third, the hairs are only on the bottom side. Some of the hairs are longer than the hermit's legs.

A tiny hermit in a glossy black shell walks across a hinge of a crab's cheliped. The hermit, still very young, is almost colorless, except for spots of red, which may be eyes or antennules. The cheliped is huge, compared to the hermit; it's white and cream, with black or brown spots. Above and beyond the hermit, looms a white eyestalk with a blue-black eye, seeming to stare at the hermit; it's as large as the hermit, almost as large as his shell. On the left, in the shadow, is another segment of the cheliped, with its hinge. The crab is a green shore crab, measuring, at most, 5 cm. across the body.

Living dangerously. A miniature hermit balances on the tip of a crab's leg. She's tiny, but valiant. Next, a tiny hermit on a crab's cheliped, ignoring the watchful eye above. It's a big world out there! #VancouverIsland #HermitCrabs #IntertidalInvertebrates #Invertebrates #MarineLife #DailyHermit