Hermit crab shells instead, as shown by a specimen of "Palaeopagurus vandenengeli" from the Speeton Clay, Yorkshire, UK from the Lower Cretaceous. Hermit crab Hermit crabs are decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea. Most of the approximately 1,110 species possess an asymmetrical abdomen that is concealed in a scavenged mollusc shell carried around by the hermit crab. Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract. Most frequently,
Hermit of Tong Hermit of Tong "The Hermit of Tong" is a missing/lost masterpiece of the English artist, William Armfield Hobday (1771–1831). The painting is a portrait of Carolus, aka Charles Evans, resident Hermit on the estate of Colonel Durant, Tong Castle, Shropshire, England. In the biography of William Armfield Hobday, printed in Arnolds' Library of the Fine Arts in 1831, the painting and hermit are described as follows: ""If, as it is said, genius is more felicitous at one time than another, certain it is that Hobday while at Broad Street painted a picture, the like of which he never did before