---
title: Hairy Red Hermit Crab (Dardanus lagopodes)
scientific_name: Dardanus lagopodes
common_name: Hairy Red Hermit Crab
taxon: Hermit crabs
published: 2023-12-26T11:26:22.207Z
updated: 2026-08-15T16:56:31.004Z
tags: Hairy Red Hermit Crab, Dardanus lagopodes, Hermit crabs, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/hermit-crabs/hairy-red-hermit-crab
---

# Hairy Red Hermit Crab (*Dardanus lagopodes*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Hermit crabs (*Paguroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef and rubble, in large snail shells
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- large hermit crab covered in dense red-brown hair, with green eyes
- left claw larger than the right
- often carrying anemones on its shell
- length up to 10 cm

The big hairy hermit crab of the reef, ten centimeters (4 in) with green eyes and a coat of red-brown bristles, hauling a heavy snail shell around at night.

It decorates. Hermit crabs of this genus pick up sea anemones and plant them on their own shells - lifting them off the rock with the claws, working them loose without triggering a sting, and pressing them onto the shell where they attach and stay. A crab may carry several. The anemones get transport and scraps from the crab's meals; the crab gets a shell covered in stinging cells, which discourages octopus.

When it moves to a bigger shell it takes the anemones with it, detaching them and replanting them on the new one - which is a deliberate multi-step act with no instinctive shortcut available.

By day it hides under rubble and in crevices; at night it works the bottom for carrion, algae and anything soft. The oversized left claw seals the shell when it withdraws.

## Also known as

- **English:** black-eyed hermit crab, Dark Knee Hermit Crab, dark-knee hermit crab, hairy red hermit crab
- **French:** Bernard-l'ermite des récifs, Pagure lièvre
- **Italian:** Paguro eremita zampe scure, Paguro pelo rosso
- **German:** Schwarzaugen-Dardanus
- **Japanese:** オイランヤドカリ
- **Chinese:** 毛足真寄居蟹
- **Russian:** Белоглазый дарданус
- **LT:** Juodaakis krabas atsiskyrėlis

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cancer lagopodes* Forskål, 1775
- *Dardanus helleri* Paulson, 1875
- *Pagurus affinis* H. Milne Edwards, 1836
- *Pagurus depressus* Heller, 1861
- *Pagurus euopsis* Dana, 1852

## Range

Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Halmahera, Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific, Kenya, Madagascar, Malacca Strait, Mozambique, Mozambique Channel, New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Pacific Ocean, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/hermit-crabs/hairy-red-hermit-crab)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*