Not Your Mother’s Crabs
Coconut Crab
The largest land-living arthropod in the world. A body length up to 16 inches and can weigh up to 9 lbs. A leg span of more than 3 feet. Their front claws can lift up to 64 pounds. With one swipe, the Coconut Crab can crack open a coconut. They can live up to thirty years. Coconut Crabs cannot swim and will drown when introduced into a deep enough pool of water.
These crabs have a complex respiratory system and special lungs to allow them to breath on land. They are called Branchiostegal lungs. This organ can be interpreted as a developmental stage between gills and lungs. They use their smallest set of claws to clean their breathing organs and to moisten them with seawater.
A stranger fact about these crabs is their reproductive cycles. As a larvae, they float in the ocean for 28 days. They then live on the ocean floor and shore for 28 days as hermit crabs calling discarded shells or busted coconuts home. After these 28 days, they leave the ocean permanently and lose their ability to breath in water. About 4 to 8 years, they mature enough to mate. Oddly enough, they still possess gills in adulthood, but are vestigial.
Though, they primarily eat fruit, they have been known to eat slow or dead animals. One unique behavior they possess in the whole animal kingdom is that they cut holes in a coconut and eat the contents. They have a another smaller set of claws that are used to remove the deliciousness inside.
Not an incredibly horrifying creature, as it may surprise the tourist spotting one in a tree, but to come across one crawling up the side of your garbage can would be an absolute nightmare early in the morning.
One last note is they are too slow to be any real threat to human beings, but if threatened and in range, they will unleash an extremely painful pinch. To release the insanely strong grip of a Coconut crab, simply rub their tummy.
Aww.
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