Beachgoer Offers a Variety of Shells to Hermit Crab Living in a Plastic Cup — and It Picked a Home

There was a shiny maroon one and one in the color of soothing sea green. Two had swirly undertones of brownish-red patterns. One featured yellow interiors. But the resident chose the one with the black stripes. These were the home designs a hermit crab was offered by a guy who spotted it roaming on the powdery sands of a beach in Okinawa, Japan, wearing a plastic cup as its protective shell. When the guy, @kylesthenix on TikTok, encountered this resident, he unzipped a packet of shells, a.k.a homes, and laid them out in front of it to choose from. The footage has garnered nearly 32 million views on TikTok.

The footage opens with a beach smattered with rocks and pebbles. Crawling atop this pebbly carpet appears an ash-colored crab, its head covered by a small plastic cup instead of a natural shell. “We gotta go ahead and find this guy a new house. If only someone had a bag full of hermit crab houses,” the guy watching the crab said in the voiceover. Saying this, the crab’s real estate agent unzipped a plastic packet that seemed to be filled with several colorful shells, a.k.a. fancy crab houses. The guy was already aware of the housing crisis that these fiddly shoreline inhabitants are going through these days.

He picked up the crab from the mound of sediment and transported it inside a green bucket. “Throw him in a bucket and give him a couple of options,” the man exclaimed. The little crustacean selected the shell with the black stripe pattern. “He likes the black stripes one. Good choice,” the guy said while the camera recorded the crab popping out of its plastic cup shell and slipping its slimy abdomen inside the new home. “Oh! Whoa! That was crazy,” the observer interjected, and then shifted the resident to the sandy coast. “Don’t see that every day. Have a good life,” he told the crab as it propelled forward.

The comments section of this video became flooded with bizarre, some hilarious, scenarios that viewers cooked up after watching the cute crab move into a new house. Some of them called it a “crabitat.” Many people called out the devastating reality of plastic pollution that is forcing these seaside creatures to live in plastic shell homes, rather than their natural protective shells. “The fact that he was using a plastic lid is making me want to cry,” commented @cass.

Many interpreted the footage with humorous perspectives. “He went from a shack to a condo,” commented @baileyboo. @honeybunsmustard318 joked, “Bro took him house shopping!” One user, @ashley, felt jealous of the crab’s serendipitous twist of fortune and said, “Why can't the aliens pop me up and give me a bunch of options for a beautiful new house?” Another jealous viewer, @et_espi70, popped an unamused face emoji, saying, “He out here giving free houses yet I have to pay for mine, okay.”

Others are stepping forward to apply for jobs of “hermit crab realtor” and “hermit crab house designers” to help these bumpy creatures fix new houses for themselves. “I'm wholeheartedly invested in The Hermit Crab Realtor,” said @christian. Well, no one knows for sure whether these people will get hired for the job, but at least this TikTok guy earned some good blessings for his philanthropy, and at least one little crab got a new furnished apartment.

You can follow @kylesthenix on TikTok to watch his seaside adventures.