Calico crab. Dead or molting?

[stan450z]

I woke up this morning to see this. Strange as hell. I thought maybe he climbed the glass, which he likes to do and tipped over. had him for maybe a month. Read online he may be just molting (possible to happen upside down or on its side) and not dead. And if he is molting I should not touch him or try to tip him over. That alone can cause death. Anybody ever see something like this? If he is in fact molting this is so fascinating!!


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[Sniperhank]

Being upside down what you see is not currently alive. It is either a corpse or a molt. Is there a split anywhere in the carapace? If so, it is a molt. If not, it is a corpse.

 

[stan450z]

It's for sure not a left over molt. Is it possible he's in the process of doing it? How long does it take? Also I think he might of accidentally flipped himself over trying to climb the glass.


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[PB_Smith]

yeah, usually you will never see them actually molting as they go into hiding for about a day beforehand and up to three days after so their shell can harden. some crabs can do the whole process overnight, but I notice shrimp seem to disappear for at least a couple of days.
sad to say it looks more like a corpse to me. molts often look more translucent than that and that the tail is still intact and more or less tucked also indicates it isn't a molt.

 

[54seaweed]

the first pict looks to have a hole in the shell leads me to say its a molt ,
some crabs , shrimp , lobsters ect will go into hiding as PB stated , they do this till there new shell hardens ,
this is a interesting molt of my lobster the empty shell shrunk after it dried out ,
the lobster is about 3 1/2 inches in size his molt shrunk to about 1/2 that size ,
notice the split between the main body and the tail this is how he slipped out of the old shell , crabs and shrimp do it very similar , I also have picts of a crab molt and also a shrimp molt I just need to find them as I have 1000s of picts on photobucket

 

[stan450z]

It's alive!!! I guess I was right. He's flipped himself over by accident. Was gonna take it out with a net and it was moving.


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[mr_X]

The molts move in the current and can totally fool you. I doubt that upside down crab is a living thing, unless he's got 1 claw in the grave....

 

[stan450z]

It's alive. See my comment above. Poor guy was upside down for maybe 36 hours


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