Hermit crabs don’t make their own shells, they rely on empty ones left behind by sea snails. 🐚 The Nature Educator explains how sea snails spend their lives building spiral homes from calcium carbonate, expanding them layer by layer as they grow. When a snail’s life ends, its shell becomes the perfect shelter for a hermit crab’s soft, spiraled body, offering mobile protection in a harsh environment. Unlike most crabs, hermit crabs can’t grow their own armor, so they depend on these abandoned sh