Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's Giant Crabs time. That's right. We are continuing
Speaker 1: our exploration of Christmas Island. And if you would, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're asking yourself, white guys, where's Christmas Island?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Well, then that means you
Speaker 1: need to go back and listen to the episode that
Speaker 1: published right before this one, because that one will explain
Speaker 1: where Christmas Island is, what its whole deal is, what
Speaker 1: the human history happens to be concerning Christmas Island. And
Speaker 1: we go in depth about the red Crab of Christmas Island,
Speaker 1: it's most singular and famous decabod inhabitant. Now it has
Speaker 1: another decapod inhabitant that is by no means limited to
Speaker 1: Christmas Island, certainly not to the extent that the Christmas
Speaker 1: Island Red Crab is. And that other capad inhabitant is
Speaker 1: the coconut crab or the robber crab, which is another
Speaker 1: glorious clawed crustacean on in its own. Now I have
Speaker 1: to admit even though, as we mentioned the previous episode,
Speaker 1: there's virtually nothing Christmas Uba about Christmas Island other than
Speaker 1: the fact that the guy who named it happened to
Speaker 1: name it on Christmas Day. I think you decided, like
Speaker 1: back in June, like, well when it when it's time
Speaker 1: for Christmas, we're just going to talk about crabs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's enough. It's enough of a reason for me, and
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I keep um hearing the
Speaker 1: Christmas song Christmas Island in my head. Is I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about this east even Oh well it's it's I can't
Speaker 1: remember who recorded it originally, but I think like Being
Speaker 1: Crosby did a version of it. Leon Redbone a fabulous
Speaker 1: version of it. Uh. And it of course is just
Speaker 1: kind of this silly, cheesy song about weirdly about like
Speaker 1: having some sort of an an ideal fantasy Christmas on
Speaker 1: some distant island, but also some this whole bit about
Speaker 1: how it's going to keep your woman from straying from you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't really notice this part of it until I
Speaker 1: started reading the lyrics. But it's like you'll never stray
Speaker 1: because it's gonna be Christmas every day, um, which which
Speaker 1: is weird. But this reminds me of another another Christmas
Speaker 1: song I listened to, made on purpose to be creepy.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of creepy Christmas songs there was.
Speaker 1: There was I've been listening to a lot of like
Speaker 1: R and B, like old R, R and B kind
Speaker 1: of Christmas songs and plays on one of the Soma
Speaker 1: FMS channels, and there was one I was listening to
Speaker 1: the other day and it had a similar thing that
Speaker 1: was like, baby, You're never gonna leave me because when
Speaker 1: with me it's Christmas every day. We seems like a
Speaker 1: very bold promise to try and make to you know,
Speaker 1: your your prospective girlfriend or wife. The nog never stops.
Speaker 1: We will have eggnog every day. There will be a
Speaker 1: tree alive Christmas tree in the house every day. It's
Speaker 1: it's a high bar. I have a live in Santa
Speaker 1: But it made me think, well, what if Christmas Island
Speaker 1: was actually about Christmas Island? We may end up cutting this.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to sound, but but I think
Speaker 1: it would go something like this, How'd you like to
Speaker 1: deck the holes with the deck of pods? How'd you
Speaker 1: like to see a crab so big you'll worship it
Speaker 1: as a god. If you ever spend Christmas on Christmas
Speaker 1: side and you will never sleep, You'll probably weep when
Speaker 1: robber crabs come for you. How would you like There's
Speaker 1: another verse, how would you like to eat? Carry on
Speaker 1: like the robber crabs do? How'd you like to see
Speaker 1: them snip baked coconut? Directly in two? If you ever
Speaker 1: spend Christmas on Christmas iland, you will never sleep, will
Speaker 1: probably weep when robber crabs coming for you? Can I
Speaker 1: applaud now? Yes you can. Again. We may cut that,
Speaker 1: but hopefully it will become a standard. What do you
Speaker 1: think is the longest period of unbroken singing that has
Speaker 1: ever happened on this podcast before? Oh? I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably from of when Julie Douglas was one of the hosts.
Speaker 1: Oh did she sing? She she she did have a
Speaker 1: knack for busting into show tunes. Well, oh wait, I
Speaker 1: don't know if they were show tunes, but she did
Speaker 1: have a knack for bursting into song. Well, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that this art you've just shared with and it
Speaker 1: raises so many interesting questions, like how big would a
Speaker 1: crab have to be before you worshiped it? As a god. Well,
Speaker 1: if you look up a picture of the robber crab
Speaker 1: or the coconut crab specifically, if it is next to
Speaker 1: a human being or on something that you can you know,
Speaker 1: have you know the size for like a garbage can. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I gotta break your heart, Robert. There is a viral
Speaker 1: image you've probably seen of a coconut crab or robber
Speaker 1: crab on a garbage can. And unfortunately, in that image,
Speaker 1: the garbage can is a smaller than average garbage can.
Speaker 1: It's still a garbage can, but you're getting a little
Speaker 1: bit of a skewed perspective. Okay, well, there I saw
Speaker 1: a picture of it of one of these crabs fixed
Speaker 1: to a tree next to Brian Cox. Not the actor
Speaker 1: Brian Cox, what a shame, but be the science scientists
Speaker 1: and science communicator Brian Cox. And I would say that
Speaker 1: it looks big enough in that in that particular photo
Speaker 1: to worship. Oh these things are plenty big. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see people worshiping. So okay, we we've mentioned several
Speaker 1: times today we're gonna be talking about the coconut crab
Speaker 1: or the robber crab. This is Burgess Latro and it
Speaker 1: is the largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth, though technically
Speaker 1: not a true crab. They are deca pod crustaceans, but
Speaker 1: not a member of the infraorder brack Era, which is
Speaker 1: what true crabs are. But if you don't tattle on us,
Speaker 1: we can call them crabs today, right right, If hermit
Speaker 1: crabs are called crab abs, I mean, they're not technically crabs,
Speaker 1: but we call them crabs, coconut crabs, we can call
Speaker 1: them crabs loosely referred to as crabs. And and even
Speaker 1: in some of the you know, the more scientific literature
Speaker 1: we're looking at here, they'll still just go ahead and
Speaker 1: calm crabs, I notice. Yeah, So if it is the
Speaker 1: largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth, how big is that? Right?
Speaker 1: How big do you have to be? Well, a standard
Speaker 1: adult robber crab is about one meter or about forty
Speaker 1: inches measured from the tips of the legs. They can
Speaker 1: weigh about four point five kilograms were almost ten pounds,
Speaker 1: And that is a big arthropod to be on land,
Speaker 1: right there. They're not the largest arthropod ever or overall,
Speaker 1: the largest ever that we know about. It was probably J. Calopterus,
Speaker 1: which is this extinct genus of C. Scorpion that probably
Speaker 1: got about two point five meters long. These things were gigantic, terrifying,
Speaker 1: wonderful extinct creatures. The largest today in terms of leg
Speaker 1: span is the Japanese spider crab, which can in extreme
Speaker 1: cases have a leg span of almost four meters, But
Speaker 1: it's also kind of spidery with like big skinny legs,
Speaker 1: So it's it depends on how you count size. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like those big spider crabs, they kind of look like
Speaker 1: they are the skeleton for a tent, right, It's like
Speaker 1: they're they're in a contest to get measured biggest by
Speaker 1: leg span alone. Uh So, I guess it all depends
Speaker 1: on how you're measuring. But being the largest land dwelling arthropod,
Speaker 1: I think is something very special on its own, because,
Speaker 1: as we've often discussed psychologically, I think to us, the
Speaker 1: sea is still very much that other world where strange
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar life forms are expected. They're okay, right, It's
Speaker 1: okay with you that there are sharks in the sea,
Speaker 1: but if there were sharks on land, it would not
Speaker 1: be okay with you. And the same is true for
Speaker 1: large crustaceans. When you see a meter long decapod walking
Speaker 1: around in your front yard, and you haven't grown up
Speaker 1: around creatures like this, you may feel you've been transported
Speaker 1: to an atomic age monster movie, like something is wrong,
Speaker 1: you know. I realized that people who live close to
Speaker 1: um to to the sea and are around crabs, they
Speaker 1: may be more used to finding the occasional crab indoors,
Speaker 1: the occasional land crab walking around in their house. I
Speaker 1: always still when it happens to me, like if on
Speaker 1: vacation somewhere and a crab is in the house, it
Speaker 1: is an exciting and special treat. And and I have
Speaker 1: to say that when my wife and I went on
Speaker 1: our honeymoon to yu Lapa, Mexico, just a little island,
Speaker 1: so again, uh the kind of place where land crabs
Speaker 1: have a field day. And indeed, our our our journey
Speaker 1: there seemed to time nicely with uh this surge of
Speaker 1: tiny land crabs that were just walking all over the place.
Speaker 1: And since we were staying in this kind of hut
Speaker 1: type structure that was right on the beach, during the night,
Speaker 1: crabs would be all over the floor to the to
Speaker 1: the point where you had to be careful where you
Speaker 1: were stepping because you might step on a crab if
Speaker 1: you're watching, and you know, they can't actually climb up
Speaker 1: into bed with you or anything. But it was still, uh,
Speaker 1: it was quite a crazy environment to find myself in. Wait,
Speaker 1: how did you prevent them from getting in bed with you? Well,
Speaker 1: they just didn't. They didn't seem like they were really climbers.
Speaker 1: The crab we're talking about here today, the coconut crab
Speaker 1: um again not a true crab heck of a climber.
Speaker 1: But these particular crabs, they I never saw them climb anything.
Speaker 1: They would they would come in under the doors and
Speaker 1: they would sort of come in through cracks in the
Speaker 1: wall and then fall down onto the floor and then
Speaker 1: keep crawling, but they never tried to make it up
Speaker 1: the bed. What a shame. The same huts, I should
Speaker 1: mention also some of them had lost some plastic screening
Speaker 1: up around the top, which permitted fruit bats to come
Speaker 1: in and eat fruit and poop onto into onto the
Speaker 1: floor of the hut. But we didn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about that in ours. Wow. Okay, okay, So back to
Speaker 1: back to Bergas Latro. Now. The last time we talked,
Speaker 1: we talked primarily about the Christmas Island red crab, which
Speaker 1: is mostly just Christmas Island and another small island group.
Speaker 1: But the this this crab like animal, this decapod, crustacean
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, the king of crabs is not
Speaker 1: just confined to Christmas Island, though it is very numerous
Speaker 1: on Christmas Island. Yeah, they're found throughout the tropical islands
Speaker 1: of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. But but Christmas Island
Speaker 1: has the largest population by far. And as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: they are excellent climbers, mostly though, to escape the any
Speaker 1: dangers or threats that they're not crazy about if they're
Speaker 1: nowhere near a borough. Now here's a question, what is
Speaker 1: the danger or threat to the world's largest terrestrial arthropod. Well,
Speaker 1: my understanding is that the major threat, of course is humans,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into in a bit. Though on the
Speaker 1: other side, we have to say that the the Christmas
Speaker 1: Island population of coconut crabs or robber crabs, it's also
Speaker 1: the best protected population of of of robber crabs in
Speaker 1: the world. So, you know, it's Christmas Island as always,
Speaker 1: it's this it's this mix of humans really mess that
Speaker 1: one up. And then the same time there's some great
Speaker 1: examples of humans really trying to get it right. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we will talk in a little bit about using
Speaker 1: them for meat and for their oil. Um. But yeah, so,
Speaker 1: so how do they survive on Christmas Island specifically? Well, um,
Speaker 1: we we mentioned in the last episode about the danger
Speaker 1: that the automobiles pose as well as trains pose to
Speaker 1: the smaller Christmas Island red crab. But according to the
Speaker 1: Australian Department of Environment and Energy, between two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten and two thousand twelve, some two thousand coconut crabs
Speaker 1: died on the roads of Christmas Island. They kept track
Speaker 1: of the fatalities and they actually posted fluorescent pink circles
Speaker 1: by the roadside drew a mind motorists to drive carefully. Now.
Speaker 1: I think we've mentioned that the coconut crabs are relatives
Speaker 1: of the hermit crabs, and if you see them, they
Speaker 1: almost kind of look like gigantic hermit crabs. But what
Speaker 1: we know is that hermit crabs will claim shells that
Speaker 1: they find in their environment and inhabit them as protection.
Speaker 1: Do uh do do we see anything like that in
Speaker 1: the in the rubber crab or the coconut crab. Not
Speaker 1: in the adults. So the adults don't use shells at all.
Speaker 1: They're beyond that. Instead, the abdomen is is tucked partially
Speaker 1: underneath the body, and they have a series of hardened
Speaker 1: plates that provide covering along with the bruskley tufts of
Speaker 1: skin along the rest of the abdomen. On my own shell, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what would they even climb inside football helmets?
Speaker 1: But Fate whispers to the warrior, a shell is needed.
Speaker 1: The warrior whispers back, I am the shell. What is
Speaker 1: that from? No, it's some saying that's in It's in
Speaker 1: like one of the Mission Impossible movies. It's on T
Speaker 1: shirts and stuff. It's one of those like no fear
Speaker 1: T shirt slogans. It's on T shirts. You say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know where it originally. Are you saying it
Speaker 1: should be in our T shirt shop accessible via stuff
Speaker 1: to put your mind? No, I don't think so, just
Speaker 1: throwing it out there. Okay. So, even though the adults
Speaker 1: don't use the shells, juvenile coconut crabs do seem to
Speaker 1: employ the shell method of hermit crabs for protection, But
Speaker 1: the juveniles are hard to observe because they are often burrowed.
Speaker 1: That's a similar to what we saw with the red
Speaker 1: crabs of Christmas Island. Like the the younger crabs, the
Speaker 1: ones that have not reached adulthood yet, they're going to
Speaker 1: try and just stay out of the thick of it
Speaker 1: until they're they're they've reached the appropriate size and um,
Speaker 1: the adults incidentally, they mold underground and special burrows, so
Speaker 1: they'll they'll they'll just dig down into this kind of
Speaker 1: spherical chamber and that's where they'll do all their molting
Speaker 1: and then they'll come back up. Now, coconut crabs are
Speaker 1: mostly sort of a deep blue in color, and they
Speaker 1: tend to look kind of you see footage of and
Speaker 1: they look kind of like brown fish, but you'll see
Speaker 1: kind of bits of blue. Sometimes there's a tinge of
Speaker 1: red in places. It becomes kind of like a weird
Speaker 1: off purple. Yeah. And then of course they have claws.
Speaker 1: They have a large left claw a smaller right claw,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of hard to pick up on the
Speaker 1: size differential when you're just looking at them unless you
Speaker 1: look closely, I find uh. But then they have two
Speaker 1: pairs of long walking legs and a smaller pair of
Speaker 1: appendages that are used for mating and egg manipulation. Now
Speaker 1: these are land crabs, so do they have anything to
Speaker 1: do with the water. Well, we see a some more
Speaker 1: situation as with the the the the red crabs that
Speaker 1: we talked about in the last episode. So they have
Speaker 1: only the stigial gills and they'll actually drown if left
Speaker 1: in water for more than an hour. The guilt tissue
Speaker 1: is given over to a highly vascular what I often
Speaker 1: I've seen described as lung tissue with lung in quotation marks,
Speaker 1: but for for land lubber breathing. Yeah, these are land crabs.
Speaker 1: These are the crabs of the forests. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back we
Speaker 1: will discuss Charles Darwin's encounters with the coconut crabs. Than alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So you know, Charles Darwin himself wrote about
Speaker 1: coconut crabs in his eighteen thirty nine work The Voyage
Speaker 1: of the Beagle. This was in his chapter on Keeling Island.
Speaker 1: What was known as Keeling Island then, I think it's
Speaker 1: also now known as the Coke Coasts Islands or Territory,
Speaker 1: which is another group of islands in the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 1: And so Darwin's observations were interesting. He starts by writing, quote,
Speaker 1: I have before alluded to a crab which lives on
Speaker 1: the cocoa nuts. It is very common. I love he
Speaker 1: hyphenates cocoa nuts. It is very common on all parts
Speaker 1: of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size.
Speaker 1: It is closely allied or identical with the beer ghost Latro,
Speaker 1: so he basically he's already talking about the same animal. Uh.
Speaker 1: The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and
Speaker 1: heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with others
Speaker 1: weaker and much narrower. It would at first be thought
Speaker 1: quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa
Speaker 1: nut covered with the husk, but Mr Leask assures me
Speaker 1: that he has repeatedly seen this affected. The crab begins
Speaker 1: by tearing the husk fiber by fiber, and always from
Speaker 1: that end under which the three eye holes are situated.
Speaker 1: When this is comple leaded, the crab commences hammering with
Speaker 1: his heavy claws on one of the eye holes till
Speaker 1: an opening is made, Then turning around its body by
Speaker 1: the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers,
Speaker 1: it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is
Speaker 1: as curious a case of instinct as I have ever
Speaker 1: heard of, and likewise of adaptation and structure between two
Speaker 1: objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme
Speaker 1: of nature as a crab and a coconut tree. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm missing something, But I honestly don't see what he
Speaker 1: thinks is so strange about that the crab is a
Speaker 1: creature of the dark, infernal depth, and the coconut is
Speaker 1: is the fruit of heaven. I don't know one is
Speaker 1: one is high the other low. I mean, because one
Speaker 1: of the things I'm at it when you look at
Speaker 1: a coconut crab, I mean it kind of looks like
Speaker 1: a coconut. Yeah, yeah, that is strange. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying like Darwin is dense here. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: his insights about nature are usually pretty interesting, even when
Speaker 1: he's wrong. Uh, I'm not. I'm not seeing what's so
Speaker 1: strange about that. That seems like a very natural kind
Speaker 1: of relationship. But I don't know. Maybe we're just used
Speaker 1: to thinking post star winning and thoughts about this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And I'll have a little more on coconut
Speaker 1: crabs eating coconuts. A little later on in the episode,
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, uh so, he points out a few
Speaker 1: other things. He says that the crab is active in
Speaker 1: the daytime, but every night it goes to the sea
Speaker 1: to moisten it skills. And this seems contradicted by modern
Speaker 1: reports in which I've read that the coconut crab is
Speaker 1: not exclusively nocturnal, but it likes nocturnal activity sort of
Speaker 1: prefers it, right, This is what I read too, that
Speaker 1: it it will come out at night, but it also
Speaker 1: it will come out if it's a cloudy day. And
Speaker 1: it also it's very I think an environmentally informed. So
Speaker 1: the coconut crab is living in an area where humans
Speaker 1: or say dogs or whatever are going to mess with it,
Speaker 1: that might impact how often it comes out. But if
Speaker 1: they have free range and they're just gonna do whatever,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it sounds like his report could be wrong. Here.
Speaker 1: He says they live in burrows, that they dig under
Speaker 1: the roots of trees, and that they make beds in
Speaker 1: their burrows out of the fibers of husks that they
Speaker 1: tear from coconuts. And I have I I have looked
Speaker 1: for modern evidence of that I have not found that
Speaker 1: anything about that. I didn't run across it either. I
Speaker 1: certainly ran across observations that you will find like shredded
Speaker 1: bits of coconut husk in areas where the crabs live,
Speaker 1: but I think that is probably due to what they
Speaker 1: do to coconuts and not any kind of like nesting ritual. Yeah. Interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: If anybody out there knows of any evidence of that,
Speaker 1: we would like to see it. Also Darwin on eating
Speaker 1: the largest terrestrial arthropod, quote, these crabs are very good
Speaker 1: to eat. Moreover, under the tail of the larger ones
Speaker 1: there is a massive fat which, when melted, sometimes yields
Speaker 1: as much as a quart bottle full of limpid oil.
Speaker 1: He relays reports that the robber crabs climb up trees
Speaker 1: to get coconuts, but doubts this is true. Other reports
Speaker 1: say that they live only on the nuts that have
Speaker 1: already fallen to the ground. And uh. And he also
Speaker 1: says quote to show the wonderful strength of the front
Speaker 1: pair of pincers, I may mention that Captain Morrisby can
Speaker 1: find one in a strong tin box which had held biscuits,
Speaker 1: the lid being secured with wire, but the crab turned
Speaker 1: down the edges and escaped. In turning down the edges,
Speaker 1: it actually punched many small holes quite through the tin. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we must return to the subject of these tin
Speaker 1: piercing claws in a bit now. As a side note,
Speaker 1: I so, I was trying to find if there was
Speaker 1: any evidence of the coconut crabs making husk beds in
Speaker 1: their in their nests, and I kept I was googling
Speaker 1: things like do coconut crabs make uh nests of coconut
Speaker 1: husks or something? But every time I typed do coconut
Speaker 1: crabs make Google wanted to auto complete Do coconut crabs
Speaker 1: make good pets? What is wrong with this world? Why
Speaker 1: is that what it's telling me to look up? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I did not research anything about keeping them
Speaker 1: as pets, but it seems like they would seem like
Speaker 1: a good idea. I mean, for one thing, they're just
Speaker 1: a larger creature that seems like it needs to roam
Speaker 1: around and live a fairly nomadic lifestyle. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: there there are varieties of hermit crabs that it seemed
Speaker 1: to be more established as pets. Um not every species,
Speaker 1: but a few particular species. They given the tin box story,
Speaker 1: it seems like they might be a little bit hard
Speaker 1: to confine. Yeah, and yeah, and then the other thing too.
Speaker 1: When I first saw them, the footage I foresaw of
Speaker 1: them in that that documentary we talked about, they look
Speaker 1: like brown fly covered um carrying gobblers. So I'm not
Speaker 1: sure to what extent that you see that and you're like, yes,
Speaker 1: I want one of those in my house. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they, like many crabs, they are opportunistic omnivores. So
Speaker 1: even if they do in a way specialize in coconuts,
Speaker 1: they also, uh, they will eat carry in I think
Speaker 1: we already mentioned that, right. Yeah, they are into meat
Speaker 1: when they can get it, even weird sources of meat
Speaker 1: you might not expect. In fact, there there are viral
Speaker 1: videos of them. I don't know if this is common.
Speaker 1: It seems like this is probably not super common, but
Speaker 1: there there have been videos posted on the internet of
Speaker 1: these crabs like attacking and killing live animals, like live birds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was looking at one of these as well. The
Speaker 1: cut of it, at least that I saw, I was
Speaker 1: unclear exactly how they came counter one another. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: a very good point. It cuts in in the middle
Speaker 1: of their encounter, so it could be that the bird
Speaker 1: attacked the crab or they just stumbled into each other
Speaker 1: by accident. So I wouldn't want to imply that the
Speaker 1: crabs are like hunting the birds, but clearly if if
Speaker 1: they were given the chance, they would they would kill
Speaker 1: and eat a bird. Yeah, um, yeah, they're pretty fierce
Speaker 1: creatures in fact that they have no natural predators other
Speaker 1: than themselves and of course Charles Darwin if he's trying
Speaker 1: to eat one. But you know, on Christmas Island, they
Speaker 1: reside almost in all corners of the vi nament. They
Speaker 1: will certainly shelter under tree roots, as we mentioned, but
Speaker 1: they also use like small caves, crevices, hollow logs and
Speaker 1: just earth burrows, especially for that molten practice I was
Speaker 1: talking about. And uh, and like we we've said, they
Speaker 1: will generally stay out of sight during the day and
Speaker 1: head out to forage at night, but also on overcast days.
Speaker 1: And it does seem to also depend upon uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what's going on in the local environments. You know, winter humans,
Speaker 1: about winter competitors about. They seem nomadic, but may return
Speaker 1: to a specific burrow and may need to return to
Speaker 1: the sea to drink water in order to obtain um
Speaker 1: osmotic balance from time to time. This is something that
Speaker 1: the Darwin actually touched on, and on larger islands they
Speaker 1: seem to remain in the same area for exterior extended
Speaker 1: periods of time. Not sightseers. Yeah, they're not really really sightseers.
Speaker 1: Now what do they forage for? Well, they love vegetable material,
Speaker 1: the fruits of various trees and the pith of fallen
Speaker 1: orange of palms. But they also tear into some carry on,
Speaker 1: as we've been been been discussing, and they have a
Speaker 1: great sense of smell to aid in these hunts. One
Speaker 1: diet fact I came across is that apparently it is
Speaker 1: true that they've got a very crafty strategy for not
Speaker 1: wasting energy after they molt, they eat their own discarded exoskeletons. Well,
Speaker 1: that's just that's just common sense right there. Right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, who out there picks their dead skin and
Speaker 1: doesn't eat it too much? For you? Now, Robert shifted
Speaker 1: over to primates, and now you're like, no, I won't
Speaker 1: take it um alright. So one thing that's probably um
Speaker 1: come to some of your minds out there, is Okay,
Speaker 1: the link between the coconut and the coconut crab is
Speaker 1: pretty obvious. But we've also referred to them as robber crabs.
Speaker 1: Where does that moniker come from? I was wondering about that.
Speaker 1: Do they do they have like a little like a
Speaker 1: bandit mask kind of coloration or something? No, but what
Speaker 1: I read is that they will obsessively carry off any
Speaker 1: foreign object they come across, including pots and still aware
Speaker 1: from camps, and thus they're no as robber crabs. Now,
Speaker 1: these these uh, these crabs will live for quite a while.
Speaker 1: I've read that they may live up to fifty years.
Speaker 1: I've also seen between thirty and forty, but longevity may
Speaker 1: exceed fifty years. All right, So I want to come
Speaker 1: back to a Darwin question. Darwin reports him and his
Speaker 1: friends and Captain Moresby and all these people, they think
Speaker 1: these things are pretty good to eat. They produce tasty oil,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Is that? I mean, are
Speaker 1: there people who still eat these things? Well? I was
Speaker 1: reading a bit about this in Coconut Crabs by Warwick J. Fletcher,
Speaker 1: and he points out that they are quite edible despite
Speaker 1: their appearance as a large, you know, slightly grotesque fly
Speaker 1: covered scavenger, and he wrote that the crabs and many
Speaker 1: Indo Pacific cultures are are ceremonial importance for weddings, and uh,
Speaker 1: they're they're attributed with afrodes act qualities. And there are
Speaker 1: also pretty easy to catch. Is the other thing. You know,
Speaker 1: if a human wants to eat a coconut crab, they
Speaker 1: and do it. I don't know about fast moving yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't know about you, but when I was
Speaker 1: looking around for footage of them, I inevitably found some
Speaker 1: reality show about like a naked guy in an island
Speaker 1: that ends up did not find that killing and um
Speaker 1: and grilling and eating a coconut crap? Is it that
Speaker 1: TV show about putting a naked guy in the woods.
Speaker 1: I believe it is. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many shows with that description exist. You'd be shocked, but
Speaker 1: it is at least one of them. No, that was
Speaker 1: the primite it was, like I think it was. It's
Speaker 1: had the word naked in the title. I think it
Speaker 1: was Discovery who did it too well. At any rate,
Speaker 1: they're they're easy to catch. If you're an established hunter,
Speaker 1: you can do it, and if you're just some naked
Speaker 1: reality TV star you also have a pretty good shot
Speaker 1: at catching one and eating it. Uh. But but this
Speaker 1: is unfortunate in some areas because it has pushed them
Speaker 1: to the point of extinction in some parts of the world. Now,
Speaker 1: an interesting theory that Fletcher points out is that you
Speaker 1: look at their distribution, um, you know, on these various islands,
Speaker 1: and it roughly matches the atribution of coconut palm, leading
Speaker 1: some to theorize that the coconut palm may have been
Speaker 1: its means of migration, Like, how does that work? Well,
Speaker 1: the way I'm imagining he didn't really go into a
Speaker 1: lot of detail on this is I'm guessing they they
Speaker 1: arrived on like floating on bits of the tree or
Speaker 1: perhaps coconuts themselves. Yeah, that's interesting, and I should point
Speaker 1: out they are common only on island habitats where they
Speaker 1: typically don't have to compete with as many terrestrial organisms.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's I think that's one they don't do
Speaker 1: well where there are tigers or something. Yeah, well, it's
Speaker 1: it comes back to the you know, the beauty of
Speaker 1: an isolated island environment, right that you can you can
Speaker 1: have certain organisms really go wild in ways that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do elsewhere in the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna take another break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we'll ask the burning question, was Darwin right?
Speaker 1: Can they actually open coconuts with their claws? We'll find out.
Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back, all right, Robert. I bet you
Speaker 1: have seen videos of humans trying to open coconuts. It
Speaker 1: often seems to require something like a machette, Like you
Speaker 1: need a very strong tool and some leverage to get
Speaker 1: a coconut open, because these are these are hard nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I mean, have you ever tried to open a coconut? No?
Speaker 1: I haven't. It's it's it's can be a bit difficult.
Speaker 1: We we purchased one. I purchased one for the first
Speaker 1: time in the last year or two because my son
Speaker 1: like really wanted to eat one, and so I bring
Speaker 1: it home and then I'm like buster on the rest
Speaker 1: development I have to ask, like, how do you eat one?
Speaker 1: I have to like do YouTube search, how do I
Speaker 1: open a coconut? How do I prepare it? And uh?
Speaker 1: And there are several steps involved. Um so, yeah, these
Speaker 1: are these are robust uh nuts there, they are difficult
Speaker 1: to crack. This is something that it falls from a tree.
Speaker 1: And hits you on the head. It can kill you.
Speaker 1: So the the relationship between the coconut crab and the coconut.
Speaker 1: This is apparently an area of some controversy because because
Speaker 1: despite the fact that this is where they get their name,
Speaker 1: uh you know, in the fact that we have all
Speaker 1: these stories about them opening coconuts, we have a lot
Speaker 1: less in the way of definitive proof. So a Fletcher
Speaker 1: that Warwick J. Fletcher I mentioned earlier, he points out
Speaker 1: some of the more believable of the ideas regarding coconut
Speaker 1: crabs opening coconuts. The first is that the crab first
Speaker 1: de husks the coconut and then the stringy fibers, pulls
Speaker 1: off the stringy fibers, and then climbs up the tree
Speaker 1: with it and then drops it to bust it open.
Speaker 1: This does not seem to be um a popular theory
Speaker 1: like this doesn't seem to be one that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are really putting a lot of stock in
Speaker 1: because it sounds crazy, right, the idea that the crab
Speaker 1: would take the coconut, and despite being no one's doubting
Speaker 1: that the coconut crab is not a great climber. But
Speaker 1: the idea that it would get the coconut and climb
Speaker 1: a tree and drop it seems crazy, um, I think.
Speaker 1: The other likely idea is that it might crab climb
Speaker 1: the tree, of course, and and dislodge the coconuts somehow,
Speaker 1: which is more likely given its ability to climb. But
Speaker 1: then other versions are that it it simply de husts
Speaker 1: the coconut and then bashes the nut open with its claw,
Speaker 1: or that that it pokes a claw through one of
Speaker 1: the eyes, like the lower part of one of the eyes,
Speaker 1: and then snips the coconut open. Well, that would be
Speaker 1: a very powerful snip. Fortunately, these are very powerful claws.
Speaker 1: This last method, the snipping method, actually was observed by
Speaker 1: Fletcher in the lab, but he points out that it
Speaker 1: took several days for the crab to do it. But
Speaker 1: then again, like this crab is on its own schedule,
Speaker 1: you know, for you to impose, you know, your human
Speaker 1: schedule on this mighty decapod, quit hurry and me, we're
Speaker 1: on crab time. We mentioned already that husts and broken
Speaker 1: coconuts are often seen in the domain of the coconut crab. However,
Speaker 1: contrary to opinions in the past, it is not a
Speaker 1: pest for coconut growers, nothing on the level of say,
Speaker 1: the rat, which is a true pest for coconut growers.
Speaker 1: Now that the crab here doesn't depend on the coconut
Speaker 1: as a primary food source. Again, it's happy with all
Speaker 1: these other things that comes across to eat. It's a
Speaker 1: it's it's an omnivore. Uh. It is not exclusive to
Speaker 1: the coconut, but it does seem to eat them. And
Speaker 1: in order to eat them, it has to tear into
Speaker 1: the coconut with those claws. The claws of the coconut
Speaker 1: crab have the strongest pinching force of any crustacean. Uh.
Speaker 1: And according to this according to a study published November
Speaker 1: sixteen in the open access journal PLOS one by a
Speaker 1: a Japanese team of researchers led by shin Ichiro Oca,
Speaker 1: and that's that's saying something right. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the strongest pinching force of any crustacean. Because decapods exert
Speaker 1: the greatest pinching force relative to their mass in general,
Speaker 1: and and this is the greatest pincher of them all.
Speaker 1: They write, quote, based on the crabs maximum known weight,
Speaker 1: the maximum pinching force of their claws was projected to
Speaker 1: be three thousand, three hundred Newton's. This exceeds both the
Speaker 1: pinching force of other crustaceans and the bite force of
Speaker 1: all terrestrial animals except alligators. Now, I was looking around
Speaker 1: and I could be missing something, but I found that
Speaker 1: to be slightly contradicted by other figures that were saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what would be the bite force of like
Speaker 1: a tiger or a lion, And I saw that estimated
Speaker 1: it somewhere around four thousand Newton's. I mean, even being
Speaker 1: in the same ballpark as the bite force of a
Speaker 1: tiger sounds pretty good. Well, yeah, because I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but when I think of being pinched by
Speaker 1: a crab, I tend to think of it more as
Speaker 1: an annoyance, not a bone crushing kind of right. Like
Speaker 1: if I'm playing around on the beach and my son
Speaker 1: and I see a crab and I'm like, oh, should
Speaker 1: I touch it on its head? And my son's like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't do it, You'll get pinched. I'm not thinking about
Speaker 1: losing a finger. But these these seconds are also strong,
Speaker 1: h I've read that they can lift up to twenty
Speaker 1: or sixty one pounds and certainly if you look back
Speaker 1: to Kingdom of the Crabs that that documentary special narrated
Speaker 1: by David Attenborough, you see like three or four of
Speaker 1: them tearing across, tearing apart of bird carcass. So they're
Speaker 1: they're powerful and should maybe be worshiped as gods. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, well, I mean there's a reason when when
Speaker 1: the crabs start doing their dominance displays, what do they do.
Speaker 1: They hold their claws up in the air. They're like,
Speaker 1: look at the power, look at the glory. Do you
Speaker 1: see it? Yeah? And that that again brings me back
Speaker 1: to what Douglas j Emlyn pointed out in his book
Speaker 1: Animal Weapons, that you know, these are high energy adaptations
Speaker 1: not only for just growing these powerful muscular pinchers, but
Speaker 1: also the ability to wave them around like that, the
Speaker 1: ability to put on that show. Yeah, And that's I mean,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, there are there are very
Speaker 1: different kinds of powerful muscles that need Er can invest in.
Speaker 1: You know, You've got the muscles of a cheetah, which
Speaker 1: no one would say are not very powerful, right, but
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're powerful like the leg and the
Speaker 1: body muscles that allow it to move very fast, and
Speaker 1: then you've got these other I'm sure there's a biological
Speaker 1: or biomechanics term for this I'm not aware of at
Speaker 1: the moment. That that's sort of like the single use
Speaker 1: muscle that's therefore exerting a really powerful single force all
Speaker 1: at once. It's not made for speed, it's not made
Speaker 1: for you know, necessarily repeated use or anything. But it's
Speaker 1: like the jaw muscles of the crocodile, and the crocodilians
Speaker 1: have one of the most powerful bites or I think
Speaker 1: the most powerful bite of any animal that comes onto land, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I believe. So this reminds me we should we should
Speaker 1: come back and do a like a bite based episode
Speaker 1: because I don't know, some some listeners might find it
Speaker 1: a bit dry, but but I'm always fascinated about it,
Speaker 1: the ranking of the different bites. And then also when
Speaker 1: you get into the the study of what the the
Speaker 1: the estimated bite power would have been for something say
Speaker 1: like a sabretooth cat. Yeah, yeah, of extinct animals. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember we were in our episode about the Wolf
Speaker 1: of Whale Street. We were comparing the estimated bite forces
Speaker 1: of the megalodon, the ancient gigantic shark and the Leviathan,
Speaker 1: the ancient predatory whale, and I recall they were that
Speaker 1: they were somewhere around each other. I think, yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe they were comfortable. Robert, have you heard this bizarre
Speaker 1: theory that Amelia Earhart was eaten by coconut crabs? No?
Speaker 1: I have not. Is this this is an actual theory? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. It's not one of those that
Speaker 1: has good direct evidence for it. It's one of those
Speaker 1: that it seems like every few years this shows up
Speaker 1: again in a new round of articles on the internet
Speaker 1: because I probably just because it's a captivating image, but
Speaker 1: I think the idea so in seven Amelia are heart.
Speaker 1: You know, she vanished while flying over the Pacific with
Speaker 1: fred Noon and her navigator, and nobody knows what happened
Speaker 1: to them. It's often been presumed that there there might
Speaker 1: have been bad weather and they crashed into the water
Speaker 1: and they sank into the ocean and died, you know,
Speaker 1: died in the crash or drowned. Uh. Everybody's always got
Speaker 1: these these hypothetical what if she actually landed on this
Speaker 1: island and something happened to the plane, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that's why we don't you know whatever. But there's
Speaker 1: apparently some theory that she crashed landed on an island
Speaker 1: called Nico Maruro, and that her remains were not found
Speaker 1: there in full because they were consumed and dragged into
Speaker 1: the dens of land crabs, of of coconut crabs. I don't.
Speaker 1: As I said, there does not appear to be good
Speaker 1: direct evidence for this is just more kind of like
Speaker 1: what if this happened? Well, I mean, it's assuming that
Speaker 1: she she did crash about an island like that and
Speaker 1: either survived or didn't, she stayed there and she died there.
Speaker 1: It seems highly likely that the land crabs would eat
Speaker 1: her like abs are will scavenge and they will consume
Speaker 1: human flesh. That's why you have that old bit of
Speaker 1: folk wisdom to never eat crabs after a hurricane, because
Speaker 1: you're because I guess you don't want to eat crabs
Speaker 1: that have been eating human flesh. I have not heard
Speaker 1: that one. Wow. However, if you kind of secretly want
Speaker 1: to eat human flesh, probably never a better time. It's
Speaker 1: a weird area to get into two jokes about hurricane
Speaker 1: related death, but here we are. Well, it didn't mean
Speaker 1: to be insensitive about hurricane related death. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: I do not believe that there is any good reason
Speaker 1: to think that this is what happened to Amelia Hard.
Speaker 1: I think most of the historians of or her biographers
Speaker 1: and historians think that they probably sank into the ocean.
Speaker 1: But anyway, for some reason, people want to keep coming
Speaker 1: back to this one. I think they just like the
Speaker 1: idea of crabs eating people. Well, like I said, crabs
Speaker 1: are gonna eat people. Umy, crabs have probably eaten quite
Speaker 1: a few people over over the course of human history,
Speaker 1: especially in uh in areas close to the sea. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: would uh would sky burial by land crab be that
Speaker 1: bad of a thing? You know, I'm not sure it would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could become part of somebody's limpid oil. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: could be one of the big trends in the future.
Speaker 1: You know, as we're beginning to is removing even further
Speaker 1: away from uh from from burial of the dead. We've
Speaker 1: done whole episodes about some of the newer methods of
Speaker 1: burial that have become increasingly popular, the idea of green burials.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we will come back to something more like the
Speaker 1: Tibetan sky burial, where a body is uh is ritually
Speaker 1: um taken apart and then fed to scavenging animals in
Speaker 1: the In the Tibetan case, it is vultures. But why
Speaker 1: not land crabs, Why not the coconut crab. I think
Speaker 1: it's a good idea to give the invertebrates a taste
Speaker 1: for us. Now, speaking of giant crabs that may consume
Speaker 1: human flesh. Um, Giant crabs are, of course pretty popular
Speaker 1: in motion pictures, and I know that's not as popular
Speaker 1: as you might think. Yes, I think that there should
Speaker 1: be way more or giant crab movies. Well, what are
Speaker 1: some of the notable examples? I mean, the main one
Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is Mysterious Island from fifty
Speaker 1: one because you had those ray hairy house and effects
Speaker 1: of that giant crab. Oh, those are great. I love
Speaker 1: Attack the Crab Monsters, the seven Roger Corman special. It's
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm a sucker for the Atomic
Speaker 1: age monster movies where there was atomic radiation and it
Speaker 1: made a bigger version of some normal animal. Except it's
Speaker 1: not just a bigger version of crabs in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's great because they're telepathic, sort of immaterial magnetic electric
Speaker 1: radioactive crabs that absorb the consciousness of everyone they eat,
Speaker 1: and they've got plans for world domination, and they slowly
Speaker 1: are consuming the island that they live on. It's um
Speaker 1: It's just one of the best stupid movies ever made
Speaker 1: because it is made with such energy and enthusiasm. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that goes to the script by
Speaker 1: Charles Griffith, who is one of my favorite B movie
Speaker 1: v writers. Uh, there's a gleeful embrace of the absurdity. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: Roger Corman told Griffith when he was writing the script
Speaker 1: that he was like, I don't want any boring scenes
Speaker 1: and people just talking. There's gotta be action or suspense
Speaker 1: in every scene. And then the story goes that. Griffith
Speaker 1: asked him, Okay, does it have to be about atomic radiation?
Speaker 1: And Corman said yes. So this is the film where
Speaker 1: the crabs have kind of human looking faces. Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: got googly eyes. Yeah. And is this the one that
Speaker 1: you were telling me about where it's possible that Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholson played the crab he I think people have denied it,
Speaker 1: but other people have claimed it. So Jack Nicholson was
Speaker 1: part of the Corman scene. I think he was helping
Speaker 1: out on set with Corman movies in the fifties. And yes,
Speaker 1: some people have claimed that underneath the giant crab puppet
Speaker 1: in Attack of the Crab Monsters in some shots it's
Speaker 1: Nicholson under there, but other people have said it's not him,
Speaker 1: so that this there's a question mark, though I don't.
Speaker 1: I hope we get to get to find out. Maybe
Speaker 1: that would be like a deathbed confession from Jack Nicholson
Speaker 1: Hill tell the world that he was the crab. Those
Speaker 1: are my ankles under that crab. I was that crab man,
Speaker 1: can't you imagine? Then I get to fit that footage
Speaker 1: into the dedication at the Academy Awards. Oh, they're there
Speaker 1: are hilarious stories about the behind the scenes puppet work
Speaker 1: where they were trying to get the crab puppet to
Speaker 1: do what they wanted because there was like an underwater
Speaker 1: scene where they were trying to feature it. But I
Speaker 1: think it was made of fiberglass and stuff and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't sink. It was like two buoyant and they were
Speaker 1: weighing it down with stuff to try to make it sink,
Speaker 1: and but it ended up exploding somehow, And so they're
Speaker 1: filming this in the actual surf, right, uh might have
Speaker 1: I think it was in like an aquarium somewhere. They
Speaker 1: were trying to film in the surf. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine how awful that would have been. Like, trying to
Speaker 1: do anything in the surf other than just sort of
Speaker 1: retain your footing is is quite a challenge enough. There
Speaker 1: are at least a few scenes that are actually shot
Speaker 1: in the surf. There's one great one where there are
Speaker 1: a few guys, you know, they're like these navy sailors
Speaker 1: in a rowboat and they're just off the coast and
Speaker 1: one guy falls in the water and they pull him
Speaker 1: back out and he doesn't have a head. And then
Speaker 1: one of the scientists is like, I hope that men's
Speaker 1: death is not an omen of things to come. Well,
Speaker 1: crab that would that big would have had considerable pinching
Speaker 1: power that well, they do specify an attack of the
Speaker 1: crab monsters that the crabs are supposed to be land crabs,
Speaker 1: so maybe, I mean they look more just like blue
Speaker 1: crabs or something. They have normal kind of sea crab
Speaker 1: or I don't know about blue crabs. They look like,
Speaker 1: you know, well, they look kind of like the red
Speaker 1: the Christmas Island. It looks like the kind of crabs
Speaker 1: you would eat. No, not so much like those. They
Speaker 1: look like the crabs that you would buy at the
Speaker 1: grocery store. I don't know what those are called, and
Speaker 1: maybe their land maybe, But anyway, I suppose it could
Speaker 1: be partially inspired by the kind of decapod crustacean we've
Speaker 1: been discussing today. Maybe. Well, but and yet, you I
Speaker 1: don't think in any of these giant crab movies you
Speaker 1: see a giant land crab um that looks like a
Speaker 1: giant hermit crab. It looks like the coconut crab, which
Speaker 1: is our best example of a giant decapod. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. There's also there's a movie called Island
Speaker 1: Claws that is pretty good if you get a chance.
Speaker 1: It's also a terrible giant crab b movie. But I
Speaker 1: also think in that one, it's just it looks more
Speaker 1: like you know, dinner crabs. They were created by some
Speaker 1: scientific experiments performed by Barry Nelson. But you know, this
Speaker 1: makes me think though that maybe what we don't need
Speaker 1: is more giant crab films in terms of just like huge, hulking,
Speaker 1: truck sized crabs. But how about just like a dog
Speaker 1: sized crab, you know, just just scale up a little
Speaker 1: bit from the coconut crab and then give it, give
Speaker 1: it to enhance speed. I think I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of movie that audiences would really get behind.
Speaker 1: I agree, more giant crab movies please, Yeah, Or to
Speaker 1: go back to the Christmas silent crabs, you know, streaming
Speaker 1: hordes of tiny crabs that you can essentially make the
Speaker 1: squirm movie of of crab films. Oh, that's sort of
Speaker 1: what island clauses before there's a giant crab at the end.
Speaker 1: There's one part where guys like living in a bus.
Speaker 1: He's just living in a bus and he suddenly there
Speaker 1: crabs everywhere and he goes ah, and then the crabs
Speaker 1: turn his bus over. How they do that? This is
Speaker 1: kind of the sacrificial hobo character that shows up, and
Speaker 1: a lot of that is that guy. Yeah. That my
Speaker 1: favorite example, of course being the original from or maybe
Speaker 1: not the original, but I feel like the prime example
Speaker 1: of the archetype the old man who pokes the meteoride
Speaker 1: in the blob. Yeah, the old Jordi Verile mistake. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. We we got a little off
Speaker 1: topic there at the end, just talking about giant crab cinema.
Speaker 1: But this was a fun episode of the Coconut Crab.
Speaker 1: I originally thought would just be part of our Christmas
Speaker 1: of a single Christmas Island episode, but it turned out
Speaker 1: they were just far more interesting. There was too much
Speaker 1: limpid oil in there, just too much limpid oil. We
Speaker 1: just had to suck it all up. So uh, we
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the episode. Again, if you've ever been
Speaker 1: to Christmas Island or any or if you've been to
Speaker 1: any island that has in this case, that has coconut
Speaker 1: crabs or Robert crabs, if you'd rather please tell us
Speaker 1: about your your sightings of these creatures or your experiences
Speaker 1: with these creatures, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, check out all the episodes of this
Speaker 1: show at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Uh
Speaker 1: that is where you'll find all the episodes. You'll final
Speaker 1: links to our social media accounts. Just a quick reminder
Speaker 1: to check out our new show Invention. You'll find that
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