Hermit crab makes home in neck of bottle

With a sturdy metal roof and glass walls to make the most of the coastal views, this discarded bottle neck is the perfect home for a hermit crab.

This ingenious little fellow has taken advantage of our propensity to litter - and added his own modern twist to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. But really, it's a message in a bottle to anyone too lazy to put rubbish in a bin.



Hermit crabs normally fight one another to make homes in shells discarded by other crustaceans, but on a beach in Thailand, 11-year-old Alex Marttunens snapped this picture with his parents' camera.

The Finnish boy's photograph, titled Home Sweet Home, got him to the finals in the under 16 section of the prestigious Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management's environmental photography competition. Judges said it was a stark reminder of man's often damaging impact on the environment.