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| Molting Pictures! |
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| Here is a picture of Jasper when he began molting. At first we thought he was just very ill, but then in a pathetic attempt at making light of the situation I exclaimed, "maybe he is just molting." Who would have thought that I was right! Then, right before our eyes, it happened. Follow along and see the transition. |
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| Here you can see him starting to pull out of his old exoskeleton some more. |
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| Now he has almost freed himself completely from the exoskeleton. It has taken about 5 or 6 minutes now since the time of the first picture to reach this stage. |
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| In this picture, you can see that Jasper has completely freed himself from the old exoskeleton. |
| We didn't get any pictures of Ahab in mid molt, but we did snap a shot of him shortly after his molt. Upon beginning to molt, he had moved into an enormous shell that was far too big for him, and he stayed in there for some time. The shell was sitting in the isolation tank, opening down, and Dan decided to see how Ahab was doing. When Dan lifted up the shell, he was surprised to see Ahab sitting... NAKED underneath, munching on his shed exoskeleton. Ahab was obviously surprised as well and he took off looking for a new shell to move into. The photo isn't crystal clear, but it is of a naked Ahab! |
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| Those purple legs he's got are his new ones! He had been missing those legs. When they are missing legs, you may see jelly like nubs form where the legs would be. There are legs inside of those protective layers! When the crab molts, those legs will be fully functional if not full sized. |