It's time to play Big Brother to our hermit crabs. No more covert ops in your sea shells, no more partaking in nefarious activities tucked away out of sight. Robert DuGrenier has your number, you sneaky crustaceans. From his glass studio in Vermont, DuGrenier hand blows these translucent crab pads into the precise shape of their residents' spiral formations, ensuring the resultant crystal shell accommodates their contours, and poses no harm to them. Now I don't have crabs, and I'm not sure I want to get them, but I have to say, these clear shells are pretty darn nifty, so if someone gave me crabs as a surprise, instead of getting rid of them ASAP and writing unflattering things about their giver on the Internet, I might just hang on to the little guys as pets. Yep.

DuGrenier's handblown glass hermit crab shells come in sizes ranging from openings of 1/2" to 2". The $20 price tag is for the larger clear shell sizes. Smaller shells, ranging from 1/2" to 1-1/2", cost $14.50. See-through colored shells are also available in purple, green, blue, red, yellow, or DOUBLE RAINBOW! OK, DuGrenier refers to that last one as "mixed", but I'm sure its inspirational effects reach tag-team Roy G Biv proportions.

Hermit crab shells fabricated from gold and platinum are also available for the heftier prices of $60 and $120 respectively.

Muchas danke to Incredible Things.