But if you are interested in the fate of Penelope the Hermit Crab, hold on to your hats: you're in for a wild ride. Penelope, if you remember, switched shells on April 29, 2011. Her old shell is the green one to her right in the picture. Anyway, this morning, Penelope didn't look quite right. Her eyes were all skiddywompus. Then, this afternoon, she appeared to have kicked the bucket. She wouldn't move, and her body was halfway out of her shell.
Eva was sad because not only is Penelope her favorite hermit crab, but today is Eva's actual birthday, despite already having had two birthday parties. She put Penelope is a plastic container and set her out in the backyard so we could have a memorial service after everyone was home.
Imagine my surprise when I looked into the container and saw something move. And not only that, but I saw two hermit crabs, and neither one was in the shell! Gasp! What's going on?? I asked around to see if anyone had put another hermit crab in the to-be-buried hermit crab container, but nobody had. Some people didn't even want to look in the container to find out what was going on. After some investigation (in the container and on the Internet), we realized that Penelope wasn't dead. She was molting! We welcomed her back to the land of the living, sprayed her with some treated water, and put her back in her home. That was several hours ago, and Penelope is still naked. She refuses to put her shell on. She looks really cute, all pink in her new skin.
But all this excitement does cause one to wonder: Was William the Hermit Crab actually dead when we buried him a couple of weeks ago? I think that from now on, if we bury a hermit crab, we need to install a little bell in the coffin like they did with plague victims during the middle ages, just in case it was a case of molting and not a trip to hermit crab heaven.
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Update: the kids are exhuming William as I type this.
Dad/Ben
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