Hermit Crabs

So, to go along with our oceanography and marine bio unit, I thought that an update with hermit crabs would be appropriate. In a recent study done at UCLA, students and their professor have found that a type of hermit crab in the Caribbean reacts slower and are less attentive to predators when there is a sound distracting them. One test used was putting a black t-shirt around an inflatable donut, and moved it closer and closer to the crab, while on a pole, and instantly the hermit crab reacted, retreating into its shell for safety. When a similar experiment was done, the only variation was that there was a boat moving across the water, and the result was that the loud engine distracted the crabs, which made their reaction time slower, which in turn allows them to become more vulnerable to predators.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56402/description/Human_noise_may_distract_animals