Can you imagine a crab the size of a cat scuttling around your backyard, climbing up trees, and quietly sneaking away with your shiniest pots and silverware? No? Then perhaps you’ve never had the privilege of meeting a coconut crab.
These crabs are curious and unfussy. In addition to coconut flesh, fallen fruit, nuts, and seeds, they’ll eat the remains of dead rats, seabirds, and even their own kind. This has led to speculation that these giants may be partly responsible for the disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, who perished in the remote Pacific. Some researchers believe that her remains were eaten by coconut crabs, who then dragged away the bones.
For those who need a garbage can for scale:
How the hell did they down the plane? Or know she was coming?
Too many questions.
How the hell did they down the plane?
Crab to air missile. Standard.
Or know she was coming?
Craydar
Too many questions.
Are you shore? Don’t clam up, I shrimplore you: ask away and I shell try to answer them all.
Coconut crabs are heavy. Heaviest crab on earth. It also climbs trees, the most common is the coconut tree for which it is named. Those claws open coconuts like soft butter, which is specifically why they are called coconut crabs. So, with those details, here’s how a coconut crab hurt aviation history:
A colony of crabs climbs a coconut tree. The weight of so many crabs that high in a tree causes the tree to lean, allowing more crabs to climb. Crab critical mass is reached and the tree, bent over like an arch, starts to lose crabs. Being crabs, they drag each other down as a crabalanche clears the palm of all but a lone coconut crab. The tree snaps back upright and hurls the lonely crab into the sky.
Coconut crabs are unable to swim, so it had little choice but to struggle and grab at anything - like a low flying aircraft. Scared, lost, and cold, the crab frantically grabs at anything it can reach, but her aircraft is cloth covered wood spars. Frantic, clumsy claws punch holes in cloth and splinter wood. Amelia has no control as the plane tumbles to earth, splattering across the deserted islands below. She never stood a chance against the crabs.
We got the crabs in the end though. When the South Pacific was chosen wasn’t the remoteness of the islands that gave us the perfect target to test nukes during the 50s; it was revenge.
But don’t let that put you off. While they will defend themselves if provoked, coconut crabs aren’t aggressive toward people. They have, however, earned the nickname “robber crabs” for their love of human-made objects, which they often drag away to their burrows for further inspection and, when possible, degustation.
While they seem especially drawn to shiny pots and pans—probably because they smell like food—researchers and tourists have recorded the crabs carrying off everything from whisky bottles and sandals to expensive camera equipment.
Tamatoa from Moana is based on a coconut crab. But he also has similar behavior to Xenophora. http://www.zymoglyphic.org/exhibits/xenophora.html
I would think Decorator Crab
Dad a chum? Dad a chick?
