Crustacés and Mollusques

Crustaceans and mollusks are nomads of the sea. Wherever they go, their houses go with them—except for the hermit crab. This poor creature of the briny deep has an armored front half like the lobster. From his waist down to the tip of his tail, he lives unprotected until he finds an empty mollusk shell into which he’ll fit. Then he backs into it and moves on. Alexandre Dumas said of him: “The Creator, having started to dress him like a lobster, was disturbed or absent-minded during his task and finished him dressed as a slug.”