Housing shortage
p2pnet.net OT News:- Yes. Here’s another OT Special.
But how could we NOT post this, given yesterday’s story on dolphin prosthetics?
Fuji, robbed of her natural tail by disease, now has a brand-new Formula One fin. However, countless disadvantaged hermit crabs also need a hand up because these tiny creatures, who normally occupy abandoned shells, upgrading to newer, larger homes as they grow, are apparently experiencing a difficulties.
“The reason for this housing shortage is generally assumed to be pollution and the collection of seashells by humans,” writes Elizabeth Demaray in Cabinet online, hastening to emphasise that, “because scientists have a difficult time asserting causal relationships in uncontrolled (that is, natural) models, we are unable to state specifically all the causes of this lack”.
Nonetheless, “Based on what we know about the new needs of these animals in their current environment, the Hand Up Project proposes to manufacture alternative forms of housing, specifically designed for use by land hermit crabs, out of plastic,” says Cabinet, continuing:
“This solution offers multiple benefits. Not only will the project afford the animal badly needed additional forms of shelter, but we also contend that, by utilizing current technology, we may now be better equipped to meet the needs of this life-form than nature ever has.”
Innovative technological solutions can be brought to bear on a great number of problems involving the present existence and future survival of many life forms, the project states, adding:
“The intended audience of the Hand Up Project is someone who, while walking on a beach, might pause to contemplate a slowly ambulating hermit crab, wearing on its back a tiny, man-made plastic house bearing a corporate logo.”
(Thanks, Rob ; )
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See:-
dolphin prosthetics - Formula One Dolphin Tale, p2pnet, November 19, 2004
disadvantaged hermit crabs – The Hand Up Project: Attempting to Meet the New Needs of Natural Life-Forms, Cabinet, Issue # 13.
February 2nd, 2006 at 7:21 am
Hopefully the prototype has changed, but the models depicted may not have any takers, except for the most desperate crabs, and maybe not even then. Despite some verbage in the article, these things were not made with the shape of the land hermit crab in mind. Otherwise they would have been made into the tried-and-true shape of a univalve mollusk shell.
The prototypes look like cheap business card holders to me. (I wonder if they were perhaps made for some other purpose initially, like clip-on connectors for something.) A Land Hermit Crab (LHC) likes a shell with a round or oval opening, a little larger than his/her large defense pincer. LHC bodies are designed to fit in a dimishing spiral shape. These plastic things do not seem to vary in thickness, either. Different crabs like different shell thicknesses. Add to that the issue of in-shell water storage, which is essential to life.
Even if a desperate crab were to move into one of these gizmos, he would die, but not without first enduring the misery of dragging a square-bottomed thing around in sand. (Imagine beaching a boat with corners on the bottom side.)
In addition to the poor shell design, the “Hand Up” article contains some mistakes which call into question the author(s) knowledge of LHC anatomy. The funniest mistake: “In order to carry its home, one of the crab’s front claws is completely dedicated to clutching the shell. This claw bends backward and holds on to the spool of calcium carbonate at the shell’s center.” That is as wrong as wrong gets! There is no front claw devoted to dragging the shell around. The crab has four back legs for that purpose. My six-year-old nephew knows that!
I could trash the article on about five more points, but I won’t bother. The best way I can describe “The Hand-Up Project” is under-thought. The most telling thing to me is the fact that the article didn’t provide a photo of a LHC actually using a prototype. I wonder why.
The shell shortage is real, but this isn’t the solution.