3D printed hermit crab shell
Posted Mar 20, 2017, 2:05 PM UTC
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I'm pretty sure a huge factor in the use of a shell for hermit crabs to provide shade from the sun. So maybe clear plastic might now have been the best choice here.
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Cooked hermit crabs with no work involved! Delicious. Seems even more genius to me.
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Coat the inside of the shell with garlic butter and all you have to do is reach down for a free meal.
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This kills the crab.
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Why / how?
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It was half a joke. Google "This kills the crab."
But I imagine the toxicity of SLA resin, as well as the fact that it breaks down in UV light very quickly, spells a short life for this crustacean.
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Also it's transparent so it could get a sunburn, and it's less likely to camouflage the animal.
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SLA resin is pretty much inert when it's fully cured.
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Pretty much? This crab is pretty much doomed.
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as long as the crab didn't get forced into this shell, it's quite awesome.
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He could be a victim of Predatory Blending.
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That's pretty good.
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He just wanted a pimp ass house 🏡
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I so want to print thousands of these in biodegradable plastic and put them on a beach somewhere.
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New hobby.
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It was part of an art project http://www.boredpanda.com/3d-printed-hermit-crab-shells-architecture-aki-inomata/
I am not so sure about how safe / healthy that is for the crab.
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can't be any worse than poultry shears cutting off the face
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[deleted]
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Now, this is really cool.
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Doing God's work. Nice job
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Hermit crabs are the original bionic creature.
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Shit, I thought I clicked on the post below this which was 'Red heeler and Blue Heeler camoflauges'. Was expecting hard to see dogs and this freaked me out.
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is that Prague Castle?
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I want to say this is cool, however I hope it's not to stay, because we have enough plastic in the oceans as is.
Jokes on the crab; Its PLA
*edit: derp, i meant to say PVA
PLA is only compostable in a timely manner when in an industrial composter. It requires a breakdown time of high heat for the plastic to become bio available enough to degrade. I don't personally know what would happen in the ocean but it seems likely that it would never get warm enough. Even if it did the specific bacteria that eat it may not be abundant in the ocean. It wouldn't surprise me if we could easily dump more into the ocean than is degrading and cause the same issues as other plastics.
^ This is true. The myth of PLA as "biodegradable" in some kind of human timescale is a falsehood. Even in a composter, there isn't enough heat and pressure to break it down in most circumstances, and in normal day to day elemental exposure it takes centuries to break down visibly - which is where the biodegradable tag comes from in the first place, as ABS takes millenia.
So yes PLA Biodegrades, but not before your great grandchildren's grandchildren have great grandchildren of their own.
On topic: This is cool. I remember a decade back or so, Thgingiverse being filled with Project Shellter printed shells. Apparently, shells are a growing issue for hermit crabs. Also, they recycle, so the fact that this crab likes his shell means the next crab will too, when this one grows out of it. They will occasionally cluster together to have shell swap meets, so it'll be passed along.
I messed up, it was a poor joke anyways :)
Hehe I guess I should have pointed out that I recognized the joke too. I just think its important to get it out there that PLA compostability has limitations. PVA looks like cool stuff, have you ever printed with it?
The ocean would break it down to a million tiny pieces.
The million tiny pieces are also a problem though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_particle_water_pollution
They hopefully decay faster than other types of plastic but I bet we can dump them in there faster than they can decay.
PLA also degrades with UV. Hermit crabs do not really go under the water so this would eventually break down, assuming it doesn't get washed away.
Thanks to plastic, this shell can be passed down from generation to generation. In 1,000 years from now, it will still be crabbin' around.
Truth