Her curls were golden, her ribbons a lustrous purple and her claw was really snappy.
There she is, Miss Crustacean - pride of the pagurids and the toast of Ocean City.And where better to hold a beauty pageant for hermit crabs than a town where a shellfish named Martin Z. Mollusk predicts the advent of summer? It's also close enough to tweak the nose of Atlantic City, home of the Miss America Pageant.
More than 200 people gathered Wednesday to watch 49 beady-eyed, one-clawed critters compete in the 19th annual Miss Crustacean pageant.
Crabunzel, a hermit crab decked out as the fairy tale character Rapunzel, was the judges' choice to take home the Coveted Cucumber Rind Cup, the symbol of "crustacean comeliness" given to the winner.
The demure creature made the ceremonial crawl down a 3-inch-wide runway strewn with flowers and chocolate chip cookie crumbs as the crowd sang "Here It Comes, Miss Crustacean."
Crabunzel's owner, 11-year-old Aimee Russo of Ridley Park, Pa., admitted she wasn't sure if Crabunzel was a male or female. She chose the crab from her collection "because he was the perfect size."
Hermit crabs live turtlelike on land in discarded mollusk shells.
Pageant participants dress up the crabs and pose them in elaborately detailed boxes.
Among this year's entries: Little Crab on the Prairie, whose environs included a log cabin, corral and Conestoga wagon; World Cup '94, a replica of a soccer stadium replete with bleachers, playing surface and crabs with shells painted with the team colors of Italy and Brazil; and the Swedish Bikini Crab Team, which had crabs dressed in bathing suits and lounging amid beach umbrellas and cabanas.
"The pageant has no imitators or competition, but then again, there's not really a big demand or need for hermit crab pageants," said Mark Soifer, a spokesman for the city that started the pageant.