Gentle Giants

Smaller crabs are already frightening enough, what is more, frightening is that these gigantic coconut crabs are spread all over the place. Even so, Mark says that these coconut crabs are actually very gentle when you get to know about them. Even the locals of Christmas Island don’t consider much of a threat as other animals found on this island. Did you know coconut crabs are able to lift up to 62 pounds with their claws?

Game Of Claws

With such super strength, they are able to do some other things. For instance, when they want to eat a coconut (food preference that gave them the name coconut crab), they use their powerful claws to crack them open. With the ability to climb the trees they can easily reach up to the top of the coconut tree where they can find their favorite food.

Experts Say

“They use their claws to pull away the outer fibers, this can sometimes take many days and it often involves a number of crabs. They then use their longest walking leg to puncture a hole through the eyes of the coconut and then they can use their claws to pry open the shell further.” said ecologist Michelle Drew.

The Mystery Solved

It is believed that Amelia Earhart crashed her plane on the island of Nikumaroro. They found her plane but her body wasn’t discovered on the site of the accident. People believe that coconut crabs carried off her body and eventually consumed it. Didn’t we just say above that these crabs are no harm to humans but then how did they reach on the conclusion of these crabs consuming Amelia? They did a little experiment.

The Experiment

To see if the coconut crab theory was even true, a group of researchers decided to see how these crabs responded to the smell and scent of a pig remains. To their surprise, within a few days, these crabs ate all its flesh. After this experiment, the researchers were sure that these coconut crabs had something to do with Amelia’s disappearance. 

Arthropods

Coconut crabs are also known as the largest arthropod in the world. Just like other crabs, when these crabs grow old they tend to shed their exoskeletons. Shredding their exoskeletons is a yearly activity. But there is something scary other than this activity that somehow makes them little scary at times. Even they are gentle by nature but after Amelia’s case, we can’t say that for sure even it was the only case where human was involved.