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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the Old Vault, this time for

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Speaker 1: part two of the episode we ran last Saturday. This

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Speaker 1: originally aired December. This is our Christmas Island Crabs Special

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Speaker 1: Part two. That's right. Yeah, these were really fun to

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Speaker 1: put together. And then also it was fun because afterwards

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Speaker 1: we heard from listeners who who had lived on Christmas

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Speaker 1: Island had seen these some of these marvelous creatures firsthand,

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Speaker 1: so that that was delightful. And hopefully we'll hear all

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Speaker 1: news stories with re airing these. Uh. This episode was

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Speaker 1: originally titled What Christmas Island Crabs Part two? Colon Decadecca

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Speaker 1: Pod y'all, I believe it was so hold still while

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Speaker 1: the claw closes around you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind from how Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Giant Crabs time. That's right.

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Speaker 1: We are continuing our exploration of Christmas Island. And if

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Speaker 1: you would if you're if you're asking yourself white guys,

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Speaker 1: where's Christmas Island? What are you talking about? Well, then

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Speaker 1: that means you need to go back and listen to

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Speaker 1: the episode that published right before this one, because that

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Speaker 1: one will explain where Christmas Island is, what its whole

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Speaker 1: deal is, what the human history happens to be concerning

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Speaker 1: Christmas Island, and we go in depth about the red

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Speaker 1: Crab of Christmas Island, it's most singular and famous decabod inhabitant.

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Speaker 1: Now it has another decapod inhabitant that is by no

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Speaker 1: means limited to Christmas Island, certainly not to the extent

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Speaker 1: that the Christmas Island Red Crab is. And that other

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Speaker 1: decapod inhabitant is the coconut crab or the robber crab,

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Speaker 1: which is another glorious clawed crustacean in its own Now,

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Speaker 1: I have to admit, and though as we mentioned the

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Speaker 1: previous episode, there's virtually nothing Christmas about Christmas Island other

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Speaker 1: than the fact that the guy who named it happened

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Speaker 1: to name it on Christmas Day, I think you decided,

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Speaker 1: like back in June, like, well when it when it's

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Speaker 1: time for Christmas, we're just going to talk about crabs. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's enough it's enough of a reason for me and

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Speaker 1: I have to admit that I I keep um hearing

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Speaker 1: the Christmas song Christmas Island in my head. Is I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking about this easy even Oh well, it's it's uh.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember who recorded it originally, but I think

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Speaker 1: like Being Crosby did a version of it, Leon Redbone

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Speaker 1: did a fabulous version of it. Uh. And of course

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Speaker 1: it's just kind of this silly, cheesy song about weirdly

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Speaker 1: about like having some sort of an an ideal fantasy

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Speaker 1: Christmas on some distant island, but also some this whole

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Speaker 1: bit about how it's going to keep your woman from

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Speaker 1: straying from you. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really notice this

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Speaker 1: part of it until I started reading the lyrics. But

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Speaker 1: it's like you'll never dre because it's gonna be Christmas

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Speaker 1: every day, um, which which is weird. But this reminds

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Speaker 1: me of another another Christmas song I listened to, made

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Speaker 1: on purpose to be creepy. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: creepy Christmas songs, and there was there was I've been

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Speaker 1: listening to a lot of like R and B, like

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Speaker 1: old er R and B kind of Christmas songs and

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Speaker 1: plays on one of the Soma FM channels, and there

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Speaker 1: was one I was listening to the other day and

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Speaker 1: it had a similar thing that was like, baby, You're

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Speaker 1: never gonna leave me because when with me it's Christmas

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Speaker 1: every day. It seems like a very bold promise to

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Speaker 1: try and make to you know, your your prospective girlfriend

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Speaker 1: or wife. The nog never stops. We will have eggnog

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Speaker 1: every day. There will be a tree, a live Christmas

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Speaker 1: tree in the house every day. It's it's a high bar.

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Speaker 1: I have a live in Santa But it made me think, well,

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Speaker 1: what if Christmas Island was actually about Christmas Island? We

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Speaker 1: may end up cutting this. I don't know how to sound,

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Speaker 1: but but I think it would go something like this.

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Speaker 1: How'd you like to deck the holes with the deck

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Speaker 1: of pods? How'd you like to see a crab so

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Speaker 1: big you'll worship it as a god? If you ever

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Speaker 1: spend Christmas on Christmas side and you will never sleep,

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Speaker 1: You'll probably weep when robber crabs come for you. How

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Speaker 1: would you like there's more? Don't manaverse? How would you

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Speaker 1: like to eat carry on like the robber crabs do?

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Speaker 1: How'd you like to see them snip baked coconut directly

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Speaker 1: in two. If you ever spend Christmas on Christmas Sidland,

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Speaker 1: you will never sleep. You'll probably weep when robber crabs

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Speaker 1: come for you. Can I applaud now, yes you can. Again.

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Speaker 1: We may cut that, but hopefully it will become a standard.

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Speaker 1: What do you think is the longest period of unbroken

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Speaker 1: singing that has ever happened on this podcast before? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, probably from of when Julie Douglas was

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Speaker 1: one of the hosts. Oh did she sing? She she

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Speaker 1: she did have a knack for busting into show tunes.

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Speaker 1: Well wait, I don't know if they were show tunes,

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Speaker 1: but she did have a knack for bursting into song. Well,

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate that this art you've just shared with Robert,

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Speaker 1: and it raises so many interesting questions, like how big

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Speaker 1: would a crab have to be before you worshiped it

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Speaker 1: as a god? Well, if you look up a picture

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Speaker 1: of the robber crab or the coconut crab, specifically, if

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Speaker 1: it is next to a human being or on something

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Speaker 1: that you can you know, you know the size for

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Speaker 1: like a garbage can. Unfortunately, I gotta break your heart, Robert.

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Speaker 1: There is a viral image you've probably seen of a

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Speaker 1: coconut crab or robber crab on a garbage can, And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: in that image the garbage can is a smaller than

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Speaker 1: average garbage can. It's still a garbage can. To put

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Speaker 1: your getting a little bit of a skewed perspective. Okay,

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Speaker 1: well there I saw a picture of it, of one

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Speaker 1: of these crabs fixed to a tree next to Brian Cox,

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Speaker 1: not the actor Brian Cox. Oh what a shame be

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Speaker 1: the science scientists and science communicator Brian Cox. And I

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Speaker 1: would say that it looks big enough in that in

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Speaker 1: that particular photo to worship. Oh these things are plenty big. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can see people worshiping. So okay, we we've mentioned

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Speaker 1: several times today we're gonna be talking about the coconut

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Speaker 1: crab or the robber crab. This is Burgess Latro and

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Speaker 1: it is the largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth. Though

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Speaker 1: technically not a true crab. They are deca pod crustaceans,

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Speaker 1: but not a member of the inver order bracky era,

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Speaker 1: which is what true crabs are. But if you don't

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Speaker 1: tattle on us, we can call them crabs today, right right?

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Speaker 1: If hermit crabs are called crabs. I mean, they're not

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Speaker 1: technically crabs, but we call them crabs, coconut crabs, we

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Speaker 1: can call them crab loosely referred to as crabs, and

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Speaker 1: and may even in in some of the the more

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Speaker 1: scientific literature we're looking at here, they'll still just go

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Speaker 1: ahead and calm crabs. They notice. Yeah, So if it

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Speaker 1: is the largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth, how big

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Speaker 1: is that? Right? How big do you have to be? Well,

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Speaker 1: a standard adult robber crab is about one meter or

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Speaker 1: about forty inches measured from the tips of the legs.

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Speaker 1: They can weigh about four point five kilograms were almost

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Speaker 1: ten pounds, and that is a big arthropod to be

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Speaker 1: on land right there. They're not the largest arthropod ever,

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Speaker 1: or overall. The largest ever that we know about. It

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Speaker 1: was probably j Calopterus, which is this extinct genus of C.

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Speaker 1: Scorpion that probably got about two point five meters long.

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Speaker 1: These things were gigantic, terrifying, wonderful extinct creatures. The largest

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Speaker 1: today in terms of leg span is the Japanese spider crab,

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Speaker 1: which can in extreme cases have a leg span of

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Speaker 1: almost four meters, but it's also kind of spidery with

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Speaker 1: like big skinny legs, so it's it depends on how

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Speaker 1: you count eyes. Yeah, Like those big spider craps, they

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Speaker 1: kind of look like they are the skeleton for a tent, right,

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Speaker 1: It's like they're they're in a contest to get measured

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Speaker 1: biggest by leg span alone. So I guess it all

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Speaker 1: depends on how you're measuring. But being the largest land

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Speaker 1: dwelling arthropod, I think is something very special on its own, because,

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Speaker 1: as we've often discussed psychologically, I think to us, the

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Speaker 1: sea is still very much that other world where strange

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Speaker 1: and unfamiliar life forms are expected. They're okay, right, it's

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Speaker 1: okay with you that there are sharks in the sea,

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Speaker 1: but if there were sharks on land, it would not

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Speaker 1: be okay with you. And the same is true for

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Speaker 1: large crustaceans. When you see a meter long decapod walking

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Speaker 1: around in your front yard and you haven't grown up

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Speaker 1: around creatures like this, you may feel you've been transported

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Speaker 1: to an atomic age monster movie, like something is wrong,

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Speaker 1: you know. I realized that people who live close to

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Speaker 1: um to to the sea and are around craps, they

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Speaker 1: may be more used to finding the occasional crab indoors,

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Speaker 1: the occasional land crab walking around in their house. I

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Speaker 1: always still when it happens to me, like if on

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Speaker 1: vacation somewhere and a crab is in the house, it

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Speaker 1: is an exciting and special treat. And and I have

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Speaker 1: to say that when my wife and I went on

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Speaker 1: our honeymoon to Lapa, Mexico is a little island, so again, uh,

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Speaker 1: the kind of place where land crabs have a field day.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, our our our journey there seemed to time

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Speaker 1: nicely with this surge of tiny land crabs that were

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Speaker 1: just walking all over the place. And since we were

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Speaker 1: staying in this kind of hut type structure that was

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Speaker 1: right on the beach, during the night, crabs would be

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Speaker 1: all over the floor to the to the point where

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Speaker 1: you had to be careful where you were stepping because

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Speaker 1: you might step on a crab if you're watching. And

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Speaker 1: you know, they can't actually climb up into bed with

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Speaker 1: you or anything. But it was still, uh, it was

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Speaker 1: quite a crazy environment to find myself in. Wait, how

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Speaker 1: did you prevent them from getting in bed with you?

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Speaker 1: But they just didn't. They didn't seem like they were

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Speaker 1: really climbers. The crab we're talking about here today, the

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Speaker 1: coconut crab again not a true crab, heck of a climber.

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Speaker 1: But these particular crabs, they I never saw them climb anything.

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Speaker 1: They would they would come in under the doors and

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Speaker 1: they would sort of come in through cracks in the

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Speaker 1: wall and then fall down onto the floor and then

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Speaker 1: keep crawling, but they never tried to make it up

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Speaker 1: the bed. What a shame. The same huts, I should

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Speaker 1: mention also some of them had lost some plastic screening

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Speaker 1: up around the top, which permitted fruit bats to come

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Speaker 1: in and eat fruit and poop onto into onto the

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Speaker 1: floor of the hut. But we didn't have to worry

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Speaker 1: about that in our Wow. Okay, okay, so back to

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Speaker 1: back to Bergus Latro. Now. The last time we talked,

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Speaker 1: we talked primarily about the Christmas Island red crab, which

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Speaker 1: is mostly just on Christmas Island and another small island group.

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Speaker 1: But the this this crab like animal, this decapod crustacean

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Speaker 1: we're talking about today, the king of crabs is not

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Speaker 1: just confined to Christmas Island, though it is very numerous

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Speaker 1: on Christmas Island. Yeah, they're found throughout the tropical islands

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Speaker 1: of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. But but Christmas Island

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Speaker 1: has the largest population by far, and as I mentioned,

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Speaker 1: they are excellent climbers, mostly though, to escape the any

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Speaker 1: dangers or threats that they're not crazy about if they're

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Speaker 1: nowhere near a borough. Now here's a question, what is

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Speaker 1: the danger or threat to the world's largest terrestrial Arthur Pod. Well,

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Speaker 1: my understanding is that the major threat, of course is humans,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get into in a bit. Though on the

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Speaker 1: other side, we have to say that the Christmas Island

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Speaker 1: population of coconut crabs or robber crabs, it's also the

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Speaker 1: best protected population of of of robber crabs in the world.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it's Christmas Island as always, it's this

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Speaker 1: it's this mix of humans really messed that one up.

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Speaker 1: And at the same time there's some great examples of

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Speaker 1: humans really trying to get it right. Yeah. Well, we

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Speaker 1: will talk in a little bit about using them for

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Speaker 1: meat and for their oil. Um. But yeah, so so

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Speaker 1: how do they survive on Christmas Island specifically? Well, um,

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Speaker 1: we we mentioned in the last episode about the danger

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Speaker 1: that the automobiles pose as well as trains. Pose to

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Speaker 1: the smaller Christmas Island red crab. But according to the

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Speaker 1: Australian Department of Environment and Energy, between two thousand and

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Speaker 1: ten and two thousand twelve, some two thousand coconut crabs

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Speaker 1: died on the roads of Christmas Island. They kept track

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Speaker 1: of the fatalities and they actually posted fluorescent pink circles

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Speaker 1: by the roadside. Drew a mind motorist to drive carefully. Now.

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Speaker 1: I think we've mentioned that the coconut crabs are relatives

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Speaker 1: of the hermit crabs, and if you see them, they

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Speaker 1: almost kind of look like gigantic hermit crabs. But what

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Speaker 1: we know is that hermit crabs will claim shells that

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Speaker 1: they find in their environment and and inhabit them as protection.

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Speaker 1: Do uh do do we see anything like that in

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Speaker 1: the in the robber crab or the coconut crab. Not

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Speaker 1: in the adults. So the adults don't use shells at all, uh,

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Speaker 1: They're beyond that. Instead, the abdomen is is tucked partially

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Speaker 1: underneath the body and they have a series of hardened

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Speaker 1: plates that provide covering along with the bruskley tufts of

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Speaker 1: skin along the rest of the abdomen. On my own shell. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, what would they even climb inside football helmets?

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Speaker 1: But Fate whispers to the warrior, the shell is needed.

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Speaker 1: The warrior whispers back, I am the shell. What is

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Speaker 1: that from? No, it's some saying that's in. It's in

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Speaker 1: like one of the Mission Impossible movies. It's on T

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Speaker 1: shirts and stuff. It's one of those like no fear

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Speaker 1: T shirt slogans. It's on T shirts. You say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know where it originally. Are you saying it

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Speaker 1: should be in our T shirt shop accessible via stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com? No, I don't think so,

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Speaker 1: just throwing it out there. Okay, So, even though the

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Speaker 1: adults don't use the shells, juvenile coconut crabs do seem

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Speaker 1: to employ the shell method of hermit crabs for protection,

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Speaker 1: but the juveniles are hard to observe because they are

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Speaker 1: often burrowed. That's a similar to what we saw with

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Speaker 1: the red crabs of Christmas Island. Like the the the

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Speaker 1: younger crabs, the ones that have not reached adulthood yet,

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Speaker 1: they're going to try and just stay out of the

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Speaker 1: thick of it until they're they're they've reached the appropriate size,

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Speaker 1: and the adults Incidentally, they mold underground and special burrows,

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Speaker 1: so they'll they'll they'll just dig down into this kind

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Speaker 1: of spherical chamber and that's where they'll do all their

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Speaker 1: molting and then they'll come back up. Now, coconut crabs

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Speaker 1: are mostly sort of a deep blue in color, and

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Speaker 1: they tend to look kind of you see footage of

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Speaker 1: and they look kind of like brownish, but you'll see

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Speaker 1: kind of bits of blue. Sometimes there's a tinge of

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Speaker 1: red in places. It becomes kind of like a weird

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Speaker 1: off purple. Yeah. And then of course they have claws.

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Speaker 1: They have a large left claw a smaller right claw,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of hard to pick up on the

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Speaker 1: size differential when you're just looking at them unless you

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Speaker 1: look closely I find. But then they have two pairs

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Speaker 1: of long walking legs and a smaller pair of appendages

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Speaker 1: that are used for mating and egg manipulation. Now these

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Speaker 1: are land crabs, so that do they have anything to

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Speaker 1: do with the water. Well, we see a some more

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Speaker 1: situation as with the the the red crabs that we

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Speaker 1: talked about in the last episode. So they have only

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Speaker 1: the stigial gills and they'll actually drown have left in

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Speaker 1: water for more than an hour, the guilt tissue is

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Speaker 1: given over to a highly vascular Uh what I often

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Speaker 1: I've seen described as long tissue with long in quotation marks.

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Speaker 1: But for for land lubber breathing. Yeah, these are land crabs.

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Speaker 1: These are the crabs of the forests. All right, let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back, we

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Speaker 1: will discuss Charles Darwin's encounters with the coconut crabs. Thank, alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So you know, Charles Darwin himself wrote about

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Speaker 1: coconut crabs in his eighteen thirty nine work The Voyage

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Speaker 1: of the Beagle. This was in his chapter on Keeling Island.

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Speaker 1: What was known as Keeling Island then, I think it's

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Speaker 1: also now known as the Cocos Islands or Territory, which

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Speaker 1: is another group of islands in the Indian Ocean. And

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Speaker 1: so Darwin's observations were interesting. He starts by writing, quote,

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Speaker 1: I have to four alluded to a crab which lives

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Speaker 1: on the coco nuts. It is very common. I love it.

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Speaker 1: He hyphenates cocoa nuts. It is very common on all

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Speaker 1: parts of the dry land and grows to a monstrous size.

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Speaker 1: It is closely allied or identical with the beer ghost Latro,

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Speaker 1: so he basically he's already talking about the same animal. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and

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Speaker 1: heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with others

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Speaker 1: weaker and much narrower. It would at first be thought

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Speaker 1: quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa

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Speaker 1: nut covered with the husk, but Mr Leask assures me

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Speaker 1: that he has repeatedly seen this affected. The crab begins

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Speaker 1: by tearing the husk fiber by fiber, and always from

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Speaker 1: that end under which the three eye holes are situated.

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Speaker 1: When this is completed, the crab commences hammering with his

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Speaker 1: heavy claws on one of the eye holes till an

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Speaker 1: opening is made, Then, turning around its body, by the

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Speaker 1: aid of its past your ear and narrow pair of pincers,

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Speaker 1: it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is

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Speaker 1: as curious a case of instinct as I have ever

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Speaker 1: heard of, and likewise of adaptation and structure between two

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Speaker 1: objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme

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Speaker 1: of nature, as a crab and a coconut tree. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I'm missing something, but I honestly don't see what he

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Speaker 1: thinks is so strange about that the crab is a

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Speaker 1: creature of the dark, infernal depth, and the coconut is

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Speaker 1: is the fruit of heaven. I don't know one is

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Speaker 1: one is high, the other low. I mean because one

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Speaker 1: of the things about it, when you look at a

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Speaker 1: coconut crab, I mean it kind of looks like a coconut. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is strange. I mean, I'm not saying like Darwin

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Speaker 1: is dense here, obviously, you know, his insights about nature

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Speaker 1: are usually pretty interesting, even when he's wrong. I'm not

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Speaker 1: I'm not seeing what's so strange about that. That seems

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Speaker 1: like a very natural kind of relationship. But I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe we're just used to thinking post dar Winnie and

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Speaker 1: thoughts about this kind of thing. And I'll have a

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Speaker 1: little more on coconut crabs eating coconuts a little later

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Speaker 1: on in the episode. Oh yes, yes, So he points

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Speaker 1: out a few other things. He says that the crab

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Speaker 1: is active in the daytime, but every night it goes

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Speaker 1: to the sea to moisten it skills. And this seems

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Speaker 1: contradicted by modern reports in which I've read that the

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Speaker 1: coconut crab is not exclusively nocturnal, but it likes nocturnal

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Speaker 1: activity sort of prefers it. Right, This is what I

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Speaker 1: read too, that it it will come out at night,

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Speaker 1: but it also it will come out if it's a

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Speaker 1: cloudy day. And it also it's very I think, an

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Speaker 1: environmentally informed. So the coconut crab is living in an

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Speaker 1: area where humans or say dogs or whatever are going

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Speaker 1: to mess with it, that might impact how often it

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Speaker 1: comes out. But if they have free range, they're just

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Speaker 1: gonna do whatever. So yeah, it sounds like his report

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Speaker 1: could be wrong. Here. He says they live in burrows,

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Speaker 1: that they dig under the roots of trees, and that

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Speaker 1: they make beds in their burrows out of the fibers

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Speaker 1: of husks that they tear from coconuts. And I have

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Speaker 1: I have looked for modern evidence of that. I have

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Speaker 1: not found that anything about that. I didn't run across

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Speaker 1: it either. I certainly ran across observations that you will

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Speaker 1: find like shredded bits of coconut husk in areas where

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Speaker 1: the crabs live, but I think that is probably due

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Speaker 1: to what they do to coconuts and not any kind

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Speaker 1: of like nesting ritual. Yeah. Interesting, Uh, if anybody out

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Speaker 1: there knows of any evidence of that, we would like

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Speaker 1: to see it. Also Darwin, on eating the largest terrestrial arthropod, quote,

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Speaker 1: these crabs are very good to eat. Moreover, under the

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Speaker 1: tail of the larger ones there is a massive fat which,

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Speaker 1: when melted, sometimes yields as much as a court bottle

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Speaker 1: full of limpid oil. Now he relays reports that the

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Speaker 1: robber crabs climb up trees to get coconuts, but he

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Speaker 1: doubts this is true. Other reports say that they live

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Speaker 1: only on the nuts that have already fallen to the ground.

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Speaker 1: And uh. And he also says quote to show the

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Speaker 1: wonderful strength of the front pair of pincers, I may

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Speaker 1: mention that Captain Morrisby can find one in a strong

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Speaker 1: tin box which had held biscuits, the lid being secured

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Speaker 1: with wire, but the crab turned down the edges and escaped.

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Speaker 1: In turning down the edges, it actually punched many small

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Speaker 1: holes quite through the tin. So we must return to

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Speaker 1: the subject of these tin piercing claws in a bit now.

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Speaker 1: As a side note, I so I was trying to

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Speaker 1: find if there was any evidence of the coconut crabs

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Speaker 1: making husk beds in their in their nests, and I

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Speaker 1: kept I was googling things like do coconut crabs make

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Speaker 1: uh nests of coconut husks or something? But every time

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Speaker 1: I typed do coconut crabs make Google wanted to autocomplete

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Speaker 1: do coconut crabs make good pets? What is wrong with

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Speaker 1: this world? Why is that what it's telling me to

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00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:56,679
Speaker 1: look up? Yeah? I didn't. I did not research anything

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Speaker 1: about keeping them as pets, but it seems like it

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Speaker 1: would seem like a good idea. I mean, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: they're just a larger creature that seems like it needs

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Speaker 1: to roam around and live a fairly nomadic lifestyle. On

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Speaker 1: the other hand, there there are varieties of hermit crabs

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Speaker 1: that it seemed to be more established as pets um

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Speaker 1: not every species, but a few particular species they given

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Speaker 1: the tin box story, it seems like they might be

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Speaker 1: a little bit hard to confine. Yeah, and yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then the other thing too. When I first saw them,

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Speaker 1: the footage I foresaw of them in that that documentary

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Speaker 1: we talked about, they look like brown fly covered um

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Speaker 1: carrying gobblers. So I'm not sure to what extent that

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Speaker 1: you see that and you're like, yes, I want one

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Speaker 1: of those in my house. Yeah, I mean they, like

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Speaker 1: many crabs, they are opportunistic omnivores. So even if they

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Speaker 1: do in a way specialize in coconuts, they also they

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Speaker 1: will eat carrying I think we already mentioned that, right. Yeah,

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00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:52,920
Speaker 1: they are in too meet when they can get it,

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Speaker 1: even weird sources of meat you might not expect. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there there are viral videos of them. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if this is common. Is like, this is probably not

401
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 1: super common, but there there have been videos posted on

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Speaker 1: the internet of these crabs like attacking and killing live animals,

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00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: like live birds. Yeah. I was looking at one of

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00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,159
Speaker 1: these as well. The cut of it, at least that

405
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: I saw, I was unclear exactly how they came counter

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00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:19,920
Speaker 1: one another. Yes, that's a very good point. It cuts

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Speaker 1: in in the middle of their encounter, so it could

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00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 1: be that the bird attacked the crab, or they just

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00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,239
Speaker 1: stumbled into each other by accident. So I wouldn't want

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Speaker 1: to imply that the crabs are like hunting the birds,

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Speaker 1: but clearly if if they were given the chance, they

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Speaker 1: would they would kill and eat a bird. Yeah. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're pretty fierce creatures. In fact that they have no

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Speaker 1: natural predators other than themselves and of course Charles Darwin

415
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Speaker 1: if he's trying to eat one. But you know, on

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Speaker 1: Christmas Island they reside almost in all corners of the environment.

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Speaker 1: They will certainly shelter under tree roots as we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: but they also use like small caves, crevices, hollow logs

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Speaker 1: and just earth burrows, especially for that molten practice I

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00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: was talking about. And uh, and like we we've said,

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Speaker 1: they will generally stay out of sight during the day

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Speaker 1: and head out to forage at night, but also on

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Speaker 1: overcast days. And it does seem to also depend upon uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, what's going on in the local environments. You know,

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00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: winter humans, about winter competitors about. They seem nomadic, but

426
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: may return to a specific burrow and may need to

427
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: return to the sea to drink water in order to

428
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: obtain um osmotic balance from time to time. This is

429
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: something that the Darwin actually touched on and on larger

430
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 1: islands they seem to remain in the same area for

431
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 1: exterior extended periods of time. Out sightseers, Yeah, they're not

432
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: really really sightseers. Now what do they forage for? Well,

433
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: they love vegetable material, the fruits of various trees and

434
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: the pith of fallen orange of palms. But they also

435
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: tear into some carry on as we've been been been discussing,

436
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: and they have a great sense of smell to aid

437
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: in these hunts. One diet fact I came across is

438
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: that apparently it is true that they've had a very

439
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 1: crafty strategy g for not wasting energy after they molt,

440
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: they eat their own discarded exoskeletons. Well that's just that's

441
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: just common sense right there. Right, So, I mean, who

442
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 1: out there picks their dead skin and doesn't eat it

443
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: too much? For you? Now, Robert shifted over the primates

444
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: and now you're like, no, I won't take it um alright.

445
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: So one thing that's probably um come to some of

446
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 1: your minds out there is, Okay, the link between the

447
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: coconut and the coconut crab is pretty obvious, but we've

448
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: also referred to them as robber crabs. Where does that

449
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: moniker come from? I was wondering about that. Do they

450
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: do they have like a little like a bandit mask

451
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: kind of coloration or something? No, but what I read

452
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 1: is that they will obsessively carry off any foreign object

453
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: they come across, including pots and silverware from camps, and

454
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: thus they are non a robber crabs. Now, these these uh,

455
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: these crabs will live for quite a while. I've read

456
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: that they may live up to fifty years. I've also

457
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: seen between thirty and forty. But longevity may exceed fifty years.

458
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to come back to a

459
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: Darwin question. Darwin reports him and his friends and Captain

460
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: Moresby and all these people, they think these things are

461
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: pretty good to eat. They produced tasty oil, all that

462
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Is that, I mean, are there people

463
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: who still eat these things? Well? I was reading a

464
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: bit about this in Coconut Crabs by Warwick J. Fletcher,

465
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: and he he points out that they are quite edible

466
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: despite their appearance as a large, you know, slightly grotesque,

467
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: fly covered scavenger. And he wrote that the crabs in

468
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: many Indo Pacific cultures are are ceremonial importance for weddings,

469
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: and they're they're attributed with afrodes act qualities. And there

470
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: are also pretty easy to catch. Is the other thing?

471
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: You know, if a human wants to eat a coconut crab,

472
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: they can do it. I don't know, not fast moving, yeah,

473
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: and I don't know about you, but when I was

474
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: looking around for footage of them, I inevitably found some

475
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: reality show about like a naked guy and an I

476
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: and that ends up did not find that killing and

477
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 1: um and grilling and eating a coconut crap? Is it

478
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: that TV show about putting a naked guy in the woods?

479
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:09,959
Speaker 1: I believe it is. I mean, I don't know how

480
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: many shows with that description exist. You'd be shocked, but

481
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 1: it is at least one of them. No, that was

482
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: the primite. It was, like I think it was. It's

483
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: had the word naked in the title. I think it

484
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: was Discovery who did it too well. At any rate,

485
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: they're they're easy to catch. If you're an established hunter,

486
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: you can do it, and if you're just some naked

487
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 1: reality TV star you also have a pretty good shot

488
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: at catching one and eating it. But but this is

489
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: unfortunate in some areas because it has pushed them to

490
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: the point of extinction in some parts of the world. Now,

491
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: an interesting theory that Fletcher points out is that you

492
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: look at their distribution, um, you know, on these various islands,

493
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: and it roughly matches the distribution of coconut palm, leading

494
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: some to theorize that the coconut palm may have been

495
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: its means of migration, Like, how does that work? Well,

496
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: the way I met and he didn't really go into

497
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: a lot of detail on this is I'm guessing they

498
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: they arrived on like floating on bits of the tree

499
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: or perhaps coconuts themselves. Wow. Yeah, that's interesting, and I

500
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: should point out they are common only on island habitats

501
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 1: where they typically don't have to compete with as many

502
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: terrestrial organisms. I mean, that's I think that's one of

503
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: they don't do well where there are tigers or something. Yeah, well,

504
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: it's it comes back to the you know, the beauty

505
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 1: of an isolated island environment, right that you can you

506
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: can have certain organisms really go wild in ways that

507
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to do elsewhere in the world. Okay,

508
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna take another break. When we come back,

509
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: we'll ask the burning question, was Darwin right? Can they

510
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: actually open coconuts with their claws? We'll find out. Alright,

511
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 1: we're back, all right, Robert, I bet you have seen

512
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: videos of humans trying to open coconuts. It often seems

513
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: to require something like a machette, like get a very

514
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: strong tool and some leverage to get a coconut open,

515
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: because these are these are hard nuts. Yeah, I mean,

516
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: have you ever tried to open a coconut? No? I haven't.

517
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: It's it's could be a bit difficult. We we purchased one.

518
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: I purchased one for the first time in the last

519
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:18,399
Speaker 1: year or two because my son like really wanted to

520
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: eat one, and so I bring it home and then

521
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: I'm like buster on the rest development I have to ask, like,

522
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: how do you eat one? I have to like do

523
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: YouTube search, how do I open a coconut? How do

524
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: I prepare it? And uh? And there are several steps involved.

525
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, these are these are robust uh nuts there.

526
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: They are difficult to crack. This is something that if

527
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: it falls from a tree and hits you on the head,

528
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: it can kill you. So the the relationship between the

529
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: coconut crab and the coconut this is apparently an area

530
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: of some controversy because because despite the fact that this

531
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: is where they get their name, you know, in the

532
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: fact that we have all these stories about them opening coconuts,

533
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: we have a lot less in the way of definitive proof.

534
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: So a Fletcher that Warwick J. Fletcher I mentioned earlier.

535
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: He points out some of the more believable of the

536
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: ideas regarding coconut crabs opening coconuts. The first is that

537
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: the crab first de husks the coconut and then the

538
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: stringy fibers, pulls off the stringy fibers, and then climbs

539
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: up the tree with it and then drops it to

540
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: bust it open. This does not seem to be um

541
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: a popular theory like this doesn't seem to be one

542
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are really putting a lot

543
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: of stock in because it sounds crazy, right, the idea

544
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: that the crab would take the coconut, and despite being

545
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: no one's doubting that the coconut crab is not a

546
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: great climber, but the idea that it would get the

547
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: coconut and climb a tree and drop it seems crazy. Um.

548
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: I think. The other likely idea is that it might

549
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: crab climb the tree, of course, and and dislodge the

550
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: coconuts somehow, which is more likely give and its ability

551
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: to climb. But then other versions are that it it

552
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: simply de husts the coconut and then bashes the nut

553
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: open with its claw or that that it pokes a

554
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: claw through one of the eyes, like the lower part

555
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 1: of one of the eyes, and then snips the coconut open. Well,

556
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: that would be a very powerful snip. Fortunately, these are

557
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: very powerful claws. This last method, the snipping method, actually

558
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: was observed by Fletcher in the lab, but he points

559
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: out that it took several days for the crab to

560
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: do it. But then again, like this crab is on

561
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: its own schedule. You know, who are you to impose,

562
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: you know, your human schedule on this mighty decapod. Quit

563
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: hurry and me we're on crab time. We mentioned already

564
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: that husts and broken coconuts are often seen in the

565
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: domain of the coconut crab. However, contrary to opinions in

566
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: the past, it is not a pest for coconut growers,

567
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: nothing on the level of say the rat, which is

568
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: a true pest for coconut growers. Now that the crab

569
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: here doesn't depend on the coconut as a primary food source, again,

570
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: it's happy with all these other things that comes across

571
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: to eat. It's a it's it's an omnivore. Uh. It

572
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: is not exclusive to the coconut, but it does seem

573
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: to eat them, and in order to eat them, it

574
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: has to tear into the coconut with those claws. The

575
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: claws of the coconut crab have the strongest pinching force

576
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: of any crustacean uh And according to this according to

577
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: a study published November sixteen in the open access journal

578
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: PLOS one by a a Japanese team of researchers led

579
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,479
Speaker 1: by shin Ichiro Oca, And that's that's saying something, right.

580
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the strongest pinching force of any crustacean.

581
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: Because decapods exert the greatest pinching force relative to their

582
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: mass in general, and then this is the greatest pincher

583
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: of them all. They write, quote, based on the crabs

584
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: maximum known weight, the maximum pinching force of their claws

585
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: was projected to be three thousand, three hundred Newton's This

586
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: exceeds both the pinching force of other crustaceans and the

587
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: bite force of all terrestrial animals except alligators. Now I

588
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: was looking around and I could be missing something, but

589
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: I found that to be slightly contradicted by other figures

590
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: that were saying, like, you know, what would be the

591
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: bite force of like a tiger or a lion, and

592
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: I saw that estimated it somewhere around four thousand Newton's

593
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: I mean, even being in the same ballpark as the

594
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: bite force of a tiger sounds pretty good. Well, yeah,

595
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: because I don't know about you, but when I think

596
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: of being pinched by a crab, I tend to think

597
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: of it more as an anolance, not a bone crushing

598
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: kind of right. Like if I'm playing around on the

599
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: beach and my son and I see a crab and

600
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, should I touch it on its head?

601
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: And my son's like, oh, don't do it, You'll get pinched.

602
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about losing a finger. But these seconds

603
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: are also strong. I've read that they can lift up

604
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: to twenty or sixty one pounds, And certainly if you

605
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: back to Kingdom of the Crabs that that documentary special

606
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: narrated by David Attenborough, you see like three or four

607
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: of them tearing across, tearing apart of bird carcass. Yeah,

608
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: so they're they're powerful and should maybe be worshiped as gods.

609
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: I'm just well, I mean, there's a reason when when

610
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: the crabs start doing their dominance displays, what do they do?

611
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: They hold their claws up in the air. They're like,

612
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: look at the power, Look at the glory. Do you

613
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: see it? Yeah? And that that again brings me back

614
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: to what Douglas j Emland pointed out in his book

615
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 1: Animal Weapons, that you know, these are high energy adaptations

616
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: not only for just growing these powerful muscular pinchers, but

617
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: also the ability to wave them around like that, the

618
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: ability to put on that show. Yeah, and that's I mean,

619
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: when you think about it, there are there are very

620
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: different kinds of powerful muscles that nature can invest in.

621
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: You know, you've got the muscles of a cheetah, which

622
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: no one would say you're not very powerful, right, but

623
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're powerful, like the leg and the

624
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: body muscles that allow it to move very fast. And

625
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: then you've got these other I'm sure there's a biological

626
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: or biomechanics term for this I'm not aware of at

627
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: the moment. That that's sort of like the single use

628
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: muscle that's therefore exerting a really powerful single force all

629
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,399
Speaker 1: at once. It's not made for speed, it's not made

630
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: for you know, necessarily repeated use or anything. But it's

631
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: like the jaw muscles of the crocodile, and the crocodilians

632
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: have one of the most powerful bites or I think

633
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: the most powerful bite of any animal that comes on

634
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: the land. Right, Yes, I believe. So this reminds me

635
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: we should we should come back and do a like

636
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: a bite based episode because I don't know, some some

637
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: listeners might find it a bit dry, but but I'm

638
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: always fascinated about at the ranking of the different bite right.

639
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: And then also when you get into the the study

640
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: of what the the the estimated bite power would have

641
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: been for something say like a sabretooth cat. Yeah, yeah,

642
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: of extinct animals. Well, I remember we were in our

643
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: episode about the Wolf of Whales Street. We were comparing

644
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: the estimated byte forces of the Megalodon, the ancient gigantic shark,

645
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: and the Leviathan, the ancient predatory Whaley and I recall

646
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: they were that they were somewhere around each other. I

647
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: think I believe they were comfortable. Robert, have you heard

648
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: this bizarre theory that Amelia Earhart was eaten by coconut crabs? No?

649
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: I have not. It's this then actual theory. Well, I

650
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: mean I don't. It's not one of those that has

651
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: good direct evidence for it. It's one of those that

652
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: it seems like every few years this shows up again

653
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: in a new round of articles on the internet because

654
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: I probably just because it's a captivating image, but I

655
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,919
Speaker 1: think the idea so in N seven Amelia are Heart,

656
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: you know, she vanished while flying over the Pacific with

657
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: fred Noon and her navigator, and nobody knows what happened

658
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: to them. It's often been presumed that there there might

659
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: have been bad weather and they crashed into the water

660
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: and they sank into the ocean and died, you know,

661
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: died in the crash or drowned. H every he's always

662
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: got these these hypothetical what if she actually landed on

663
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: this island and something happened to the plane and you know,

664
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 1: and that's why we don't, you know whatever. But there's

665
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: apparently some theory that she crashed landed on an island

666
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: called Nicko Maruro, and that her remains were not found

667
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: there in full because they were consumed and dragged into

668
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: the dens of land crabs of of howcnut crabs. I don't.

669
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: As I said, there does not appear to be good

670
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: direct evidence for this. It is just more kind of

671
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 1: like what if this happened. Well, I mean, its assuming

672
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: that she she did crash upon an island like that

673
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: and either survived or didn't, she stayed there and she

674
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: died there. It seems highly likely that the land crabs

675
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 1: would eat, or crabs are will scavenge and they will

676
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,839
Speaker 1: consume human flesh. That's why you have that old bit

677
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: of folk wisdom to never eat crabs after a hurricane,

678
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: because you're because I guess you don't want to eat

679
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: crabs that have been eating human flesh. I have not

680
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: heard that one. Yeah. Wow, However, if you kind of

681
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: secretly want to eat human flesh, probably never a better time.

682
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: It's a weird area to get into two jokes about

683
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: hurricane related death, but here we are. Well, it didn't

684
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: mean to be insensitive about hurricane related death. But yeah,

685
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 1: I I do not believe that there is any good

686
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: reason to think that this is what happened to Amelia

687
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: are hard. I think most of the historians of or

688
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: her biographers and historians think that they probably sank into

689
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: the ocean. But anyway, for some reason, people want to

690
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: keep coming back to this one. I think they just

691
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 1: like the idea of crabs eating people well, and like

692
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 1: I said crabs are gonna eat people. UM. Crabs have

693
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 1: probably eaten quite a few people over over the course

694
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: of human history, especially in UH in areas close to

695
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: the sea. And ultimately would UH would sky burial by

696
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: land crab be that bad of a thing? You know? Oh,

697
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it would. Yeah, you could become part

698
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: of somebody's limpid oil. Yeah, this could be one of

699
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: the big trends in the future. You know, as we're

700
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 1: beginning to is removing even further away from UH from

701
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 1: from burial of the dead. We've adn't done whole episodes

702
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: about some of the newer methods of burial that have

703
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: become increasingly popular, the idea of green burials. Perhaps we

704
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: will come back to something more like the Tibetan sky burial,

705
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:23,320
Speaker 1: where a body is uh is ritually um taken apart

706
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: and then fed to scavenging animals in the In the

707
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: Tibetan case, it is vultures. But why not land crabs,

708
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: Why not the coconut crab. I think it's a good

709
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 1: idea to give the invertebrates a taste for us. Now,

710
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 1: speaking of giant crabs that may consume human flesh, UM,

711
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: giant crabs are, of course pretty popular in motion pictures,

712
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 1: and I know that's not as popular as you might think. Yes,

713
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: I think that there should be way more giant crab movies. Well,

714
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: what are some of the notable examples. I mean, the

715
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: main one that comes to my mind is Mysterious Island

716
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: from fifty one because you had those ray hairy house

717
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,439
Speaker 1: and effects of that giant crab. Oh, those are great.

718
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: I love Attack the Crab Monsters, the seven Roger Corman special.

719
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: It's you know, I you know, I'm a sucker for

720
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: the Atomic Age monster movies, where there was atomic radiation

721
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: and it made a bigger version of some normal animal.

722
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: Except it's not just a bigger version of crabs in

723
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: this movie. It's great because they're telepathic, sort of immaterial, magnetic, electric,

724
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: radioactive crabs that absorbed the consciousness of everyone they eat,

725
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,760
Speaker 1: and they've got plans for world domination, and they slowly

726
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: are consuming the island that they live on. It's um

727
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,439
Speaker 1: It's just one of the best stupid movies ever made

728
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: because it is made with such energy and enthusiasm. I

729
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 1: think a lot of that goes to the script by

730
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: Charles Griffith, who is one of my favorite B movie writers. Uh,

731
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 1: there's a gleeful embrace of the absurdity. Supposedly, Roger Corman

732
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: told Griffith when he was writing the script that he

733
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: was like, don't want any boring scenes and people just talking.

734
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: There's gotta be action or suspense in every scene, and

735
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: then the story goes that. Griffith asked him, Okay, does

736
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: it have to be about atomic radiation? And Corman said yes.

737
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: So this is the film where the crabs have kind

738
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: of human looking faces. Yeah, they've got googly eyes. Yeah.

739
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 1: And is this the one that you were telling me

740
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: about where it's possible that Jack Nicholson played the crab

741
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: he I think people have denied it, but other people

742
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: have claimed it. So Jack Nicholson was part of the

743
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: Corman scene. I think he was helping out on set

744
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: with Corman movies in the fifties. And yes, some people

745
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: have claimed that underneath the giant crab puppet in attack

746
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: of the crab monsters in some shots it's Nicholson under there,

747
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: but other people have said it's not him. So that

748
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 1: is a there's a question mark, though, I don't know.

749
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 1: I hope we get to get to find out. Maybe

750
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: that would be like a deathbed confession from Jack Nicholson.

751
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,479
Speaker 1: Hill would be the world that he was the crab.

752
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: Those are my ankle under that crab. I was that

753
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 1: crab man, can't you imagine? Then they get to fit

754
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: that footage into the dedication at the Academy Awards. Man

755
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: they're there are hilarious stories about the behind the scenes

756
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: puppet work where they were trying to get the crab

757
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 1: puppet to do what they wanted, because there was like

758
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: an underwater scene where they were trying to feature it.

759
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: But I think it was made of fiberglass and stuff,

760
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't sink. It was like two buoy and

761
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: and they were weighing it down with stuff to try

762
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: to make it sink, and but it ended up exploding somehow.

763
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: And so they're filming this in the actual surf, right,

764
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: uh might have I think it was in like an

765
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: aquarium take somewhere they were trying to film in the surf.

766
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: I can only imagine how awful that would have been.

767
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: Like trying to do anything in the surf other than

768
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: just sort of retain your footing is is quite a

769
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: challenge enough. There are at least a few scenes that

770
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: are actually shot in the surf. There's one great one

771
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 1: where there are a few guys, you know, there, like

772
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: these navy sailors in a rowboat and they're just off

773
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: the coast. One guy falls in the water and they

774
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: pull him back out and he doesn't have a head.

775
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: And then one of the scientists is like, I hope

776
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: that men's death is not an omen of things to come. Well,

777
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: crab that would that big would have had considerable pinching power.

778
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: That well, they do specify an attack of the crab

779
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: monsters that the crabs are supposed to be land crabs,

780
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: So maybe I mean they look more just like blue

781
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: crabs or something that normal kind of sea crab or

782
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: I don't know about blue crabs. They look like, you know, well,

783
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:31,959
Speaker 1: they look kind of like the red the Christmas Island

784
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: red crab. It looks like the kind of crabs you

785
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: would eat. No, not so much like those. They look

786
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: like the crabs that you would buy at the grocery store.

787
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 1: I don't know what are called. And maybe their land maybe,

788
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 1: But anyway, I suppose it could be partially inspired by

789
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: the kind of decapod crustacean we've been discussing today. Maybe well,

790
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: but and yet you I don't think in any of

791
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: these giant crab movies you see a giant land crab

792
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 1: um that looks like a giant hermit crab. It looks

793
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: like the coconut crab, which is our best example of

794
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: the giant decapod. No, I don't think. So. There's also

795
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: there's a movie called Island Claws that is pretty good

796
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: if you get a chance. It's also a terrible giant

797
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: crab b movie. But I also think in that one,

798
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: it's just it looks more like you know, dinner crabs.

799
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: They were created by some scientific experiments performed by Barry Nelson.

800
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: All right, But you know, this makes me think though

801
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,320
Speaker 1: that maybe what we don't need is more giant crab

802
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: films in terms of just like huge, hulking, truck sized crabs.

803
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: But how about just like a dog sized crab, you know,

804
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,720
Speaker 1: just just scale up a little bit from the coconut

805
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: crab and then give it, give it to enhance speed.

806
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 1: I think I feel like that's the kind of movie

807
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: that audiences would really get behind. I agree, more giant

808
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: crab movies, please, yeah, Or to go back to the

809
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: Christmas island crabs, you know, streaming hordes of tiny crabs

810
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: that you can essentially make the squirm movie of of

811
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: crab films. Oh, that's sort of what I land clauses

812
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: before there's a giant crab at the end. There's one

813
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: part where guys like living in a bus. He's just

814
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: living in a bus and he suddenly there crabs everywhere

815
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: and he goes ah, and then the crabs turn his

816
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: bus over. How they do that? This is kind of

817
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: the sacrificial hobo character that shows up, and a lot

818
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: of that is that guy. Yeah. My favorite example, of

819
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: course being the original from or maybe not the original,

820
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: but I feel like the prime example of the archetype

821
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: the the old man who pokes the meteor ride in

822
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: the blob, right, yeah, the old Jordi Verile mistake. All right, well,

823
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: there you have it. We we got a little off

824
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: topic there at the end, just talking about giant crab cinema.

825
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: But this was a fun episode of the Coconut Crab.

826
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: I originally thought would just be part of our Christmas

827
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: of a single Christmas Island episode, but it turned out

828
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: they were just far more interesting. There was too much

829
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: limpid oil in there, just too much limpid oil. We

830
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,040
Speaker 1: just had to suck it all up. So uh, we

831
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the episode. Again, if you've ever been

832
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: to Christmas Island or any or if you've been to

833
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 1: any island that has in this case, that has coconut

834
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: crabs or Robert crabs, if you'd rather please tell us

835
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 1: about your your sightings of these creatures or your experiences

836
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: with these creatures, we would love to hear from you.

837
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: In the meantime, check out all the episodes of this

838
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: show at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Uh.

839
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: That is where you'll find all the episodes will final

840
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: inksto our social media accounts. Just a quick reminder to

841
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: check out our new show Invention. You'll find that at

842
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: invention pod dot com that comes out every Monday. Each

843
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: episode is a new invention, a new page from human

844
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: techno history. And if you dig this show, we think

845
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: you're gonna dig Invention as well. Absolutely so check it

846
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 1: out big thanks to our awesome audio producers Alex Williams

847
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: and Torii Harrison. If you would like to get in

848
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: touch with us directly to let us know feedback on

849
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