RIP mr. crab

I have two crabs in my aquarium at school. One is a hermit crab and the other--I have no idea. I got it with a shipment of random "sea creatures" that a now-retired science teacher ordered for me at the beginning of the year. I was worried hermit crab would attack and eat the new crab because he was pretty small. But new crab did well for himself--and after 3 months, he tripled in size. He quickly became king of the tank.

Friday afternoon however, I noticed the King dangling unnaturally off the side of a rock. I poked at him with a plastic fork-and-chopstick contraption and watched him fall lifelessly onto the sand belly up. Hermit crab scurried over and started grabbing friskily at the fork, thinking I had a piece of shrimp on the end of it to feed him. I shooed him away and propped the King back upright on a rock as if that would miraculously bring him back to life.

Hermit soon discovered the guise and started climbing all over King and eating one of his legs. Fork-and-chopstick contraption to the rescue, I scooped King out of the water and put him in a separate compartment, hoping he was just playing dead and would snap out of it over the weekend. I came back this Monday morning and he hadn't moved an inch. RIP King. Hermit crab won't miss you. But I might.