WEBVTT - Christmas Island, Part 2: Deca Deca Pod Y’all 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.200 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.919 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.760 and it's Giant Crabs time. That's right. We are continuing 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.640 our exploration of Christmas Island. And if you would, if 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.840 you're if you're asking yourself, white guys, where's Christmas Island? 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:29.520 What are you talking about? Well, then that means you 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:31.280 need to go back and listen to the episode that 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.199 published right before this one, because that one will explain 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.000 where Christmas Island is, what its whole deal is, what 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.839 the human history happens to be concerning Christmas Island. And 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.320 we go in depth about the red Crab of Christmas Island, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.560 it's most singular and famous decabod inhabitant. Now it has 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.000 another decapod inhabitant that is by no means limited to 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.320 Christmas Island, certainly not to the extent that the Christmas 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.440 Island Red Crab is. And that other capad inhabitant is 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.839 the coconut crab or the robber crab, which is another 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.640 glorious clawed crustacean on in its own. Now I have 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.360 to admit even though, as we mentioned the previous episode, 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.880 there's virtually nothing Christmas Uba about Christmas Island other than 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.319 the fact that the guy who named it happened to 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.480 name it on Christmas Day. I think you decided, like 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.280 back in June, like, well when it when it's time 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.680 for Christmas, we're just going to talk about crabs. Yeah, 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.800 it's enough. It's enough of a reason for me, and 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.640 I have to admit that I keep um hearing the 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.119 Christmas song Christmas Island in my head. Is I'm thinking 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.480 about this east even Oh well it's it's I can't 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.560 remember who recorded it originally, but I think like Being 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:48.200 Crosby did a version of it. Leon Redbone a fabulous 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.720 version of it. Uh. And it of course is just 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.920 kind of this silly, cheesy song about weirdly about like 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.240 having some sort of an an ideal fantasy Christmas on 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.040 some distant island, but also some this whole bit about 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.680 how it's going to keep your woman from straying from you. Yeah. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.519 I didn't really notice this part of it until I 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.760 started reading the lyrics. But it's like you'll never stray 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:15.639 because it's gonna be Christmas every day, um, which which 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.200 is weird. But this reminds me of another another Christmas 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.360 song I listened to, made on purpose to be creepy. 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.760 There were a lot of creepy Christmas songs there was. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.840 There was I've been listening to a lot of like 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.239 R and B, like old R, R and B kind 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.760 of Christmas songs and plays on one of the Soma 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.320 FMS channels, and there was one I was listening to 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:36.840 the other day and it had a similar thing that 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.200 was like, baby, You're never gonna leave me because when 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.960 with me it's Christmas every day. We seems like a 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.320 very bold promise to try and make to you know, 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.239 your your prospective girlfriend or wife. The nog never stops. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.040 We will have eggnog every day. There will be a 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.840 tree alive Christmas tree in the house every day. It's 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.959 it's a high bar. I have a live in Santa 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.120 But it made me think, well, what if Christmas Island 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.960 was actually about Christmas Island? We may end up cutting this. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.280 I don't know how to sound, but but I think 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.800 it would go something like this, How'd you like to 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:17.640 deck the holes with the deck of pods? How'd you 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.120 like to see a crab so big you'll worship it 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:28.320 as a god. If you ever spend Christmas on Christmas 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.919 side and you will never sleep, You'll probably weep when 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:40.440 robber crabs come for you. How would you like There's 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.800 another verse, how would you like to eat? Carry on 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.760 like the robber crabs do? How'd you like to see 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:54.320 them snip baked coconut? Directly in two? If you ever 0:03:54.400 --> 0:04:00.160 spend Christmas on Christmas iland, you will never sleep, will 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.480 probably weep when robber crabs coming for you? Can I 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.320 applaud now? Yes you can. Again. We may cut that, 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.120 but hopefully it will become a standard. What do you 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.560 think is the longest period of unbroken singing that has 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.600 ever happened on this podcast before? Oh? I don't know, 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:22.120 probably from of when Julie Douglas was one of the hosts. 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.480 Oh did she sing? She she she did have a 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.240 knack for busting into show tunes. Well, oh wait, I 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.040 don't know if they were show tunes, but she did 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.119 have a knack for bursting into song. Well, I really 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.719 appreciate that this art you've just shared with and it 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.600 raises so many interesting questions, like how big would a 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.960 crab have to be before you worshiped it? As a god. Well, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.240 if you look up a picture of the robber crab 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.279 or the coconut crab specifically, if it is next to 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.719 a human being or on something that you can you know, 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.159 have you know the size for like a garbage can. Unfortunately, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.360 I gotta break your heart, Robert. There is a viral 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.640 image you've probably seen of a coconut crab or robber 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.280 crab on a garbage can. And unfortunately, in that image, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.080 the garbage can is a smaller than average garbage can. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.279 It's still a garbage can, but you're getting a little 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.720 bit of a skewed perspective. Okay, well, there I saw 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.640 a picture of it of one of these crabs fixed 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.400 to a tree next to Brian Cox. Not the actor 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.800 Brian Cox, what a shame, but be the science scientists 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.560 and science communicator Brian Cox. And I would say that 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.320 it looks big enough in that in that particular photo 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.840 to worship. Oh these things are plenty big. Yeah, I 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.200 can see people worshiping. So okay, we we've mentioned several 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.520 times today we're gonna be talking about the coconut crab 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.880 or the robber crab. This is Burgess Latro and it 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:45.480 is the largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth, though technically 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.719 not a true crab. They are deca pod crustaceans, but 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.479 not a member of the infraorder brack Era, which is 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.640 what true crabs are. But if you don't tattle on us, 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.960 we can call them crabs today, right right, If hermit 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.080 crabs are called crab abs, I mean, they're not technically crabs, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.080 but we call them crabs, coconut crabs, we can call 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.280 them crabs loosely referred to as crabs. And and even 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.920 in some of the you know, the more scientific literature 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.040 we're looking at here, they'll still just go ahead and 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.000 calm crabs, I notice. Yeah, So if it is the 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.480 largest land dwelling arthropod on Earth, how big is that? Right? 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.880 How big do you have to be? Well, a standard 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.560 adult robber crab is about one meter or about forty 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.920 inches measured from the tips of the legs. They can 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.680 weigh about four point five kilograms were almost ten pounds, 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.200 And that is a big arthropod to be on land, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.480 right there. They're not the largest arthropod ever or overall, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.960 the largest ever that we know about. It was probably J. Calopterus, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.440 which is this extinct genus of C. Scorpion that probably 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:53.280 got about two point five meters long. These things were gigantic, terrifying, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.520 wonderful extinct creatures. The largest today in terms of leg 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.279 span is the Japanese spider crab, which can in extreme 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.359 cases have a leg span of almost four meters, But 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:08.000 it's also kind of spidery with like big skinny legs, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.120 So it's it depends on how you count size. Yeah, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.560 Like those big spider crabs, they kind of look like 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.880 they are the skeleton for a tent, right, It's like 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.120 they're they're in a contest to get measured biggest by 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.120 leg span alone. Uh So, I guess it all depends 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.400 on how you're measuring. But being the largest land dwelling arthropod, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.080 I think is something very special on its own, because, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.440 as we've often discussed psychologically, I think to us, the 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.080 sea is still very much that other world where strange 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.200 and unfamiliar life forms are expected. They're okay, right, It's 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.040 okay with you that there are sharks in the sea, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.040 but if there were sharks on land, it would not 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.560 be okay with you. And the same is true for 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:54.239 large crustaceans. When you see a meter long decapod walking 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.680 around in your front yard, and you haven't grown up 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.000 around creatures like this, you may feel you've been transported 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.720 to an atomic age monster movie, like something is wrong, 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.680 you know. I realized that people who live close to 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.280 um to to the sea and are around crabs, they 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.200 may be more used to finding the occasional crab indoors, 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.560 the occasional land crab walking around in their house. I 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:18.920 always still when it happens to me, like if on 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.080 vacation somewhere and a crab is in the house, it 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.920 is an exciting and special treat. And and I have 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.320 to say that when my wife and I went on 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.880 our honeymoon to yu Lapa, Mexico, just a little island, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.600 so again, uh the kind of place where land crabs 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.840 have a field day. And indeed, our our our journey 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.520 there seemed to time nicely with uh this surge of 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.760 tiny land crabs that were just walking all over the place. 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:47.680 And since we were staying in this kind of hut 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.680 type structure that was right on the beach, during the night, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.880 crabs would be all over the floor to the to 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.760 the point where you had to be careful where you 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:58.959 were stepping because you might step on a crab if 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.760 you're watching, and you know, they can't actually climb up 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.200 into bed with you or anything. But it was still, uh, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.160 it was quite a crazy environment to find myself in. Wait, 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.520 how did you prevent them from getting in bed with you? Well, 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.040 they just didn't. They didn't seem like they were really climbers. 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.920 The crab we're talking about here today, the coconut crab 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.120 um again not a true crab heck of a climber. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.160 But these particular crabs, they I never saw them climb anything. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.600 They would they would come in under the doors and 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.600 they would sort of come in through cracks in the 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:29.880 wall and then fall down onto the floor and then 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.200 keep crawling, but they never tried to make it up 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.880 the bed. What a shame. The same huts, I should 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:40.440 mention also some of them had lost some plastic screening 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.280 up around the top, which permitted fruit bats to come 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.680 in and eat fruit and poop onto into onto the 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:48.520 floor of the hut. But we didn't have to worry 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.320 about that in ours. Wow. Okay, okay, So back to 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.240 back to Bergas Latro. Now. The last time we talked, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.000 we talked primarily about the Christmas Island red crab, which 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.720 is mostly just Christmas Island and another small island group. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.520 But the this this crab like animal, this decapod, crustacean 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.480 we're talking about today, the king of crabs is not 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.400 just confined to Christmas Island, though it is very numerous 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.000 on Christmas Island. Yeah, they're found throughout the tropical islands 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.160 of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. But but Christmas Island 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.240 has the largest population by far. And as I mentioned, 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.800 they are excellent climbers, mostly though, to escape the any 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.400 dangers or threats that they're not crazy about if they're 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.000 nowhere near a borough. Now here's a question, what is 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.640 the danger or threat to the world's largest terrestrial arthropod. Well, 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.400 my understanding is that the major threat, of course is humans, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.120 which we'll get into in a bit. Though on the 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.520 other side, we have to say that the the Christmas 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.240 Island population of coconut crabs or robber crabs, it's also 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.440 the best protected population of of of robber crabs in 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.680 the world. So, you know, it's Christmas Island as always, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.280 it's this it's this mix of humans really mess that 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.080 one up. And then the same time there's some great 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.200 examples of humans really trying to get it right. Uh. Yeah, 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.600 well we will talk in a little bit about using 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:11.840 them for meat and for their oil. Um. But yeah, so, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.160 so how do they survive on Christmas Island specifically? Well, um, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.720 we we mentioned in the last episode about the danger 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.640 that the automobiles pose as well as trains pose to 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.640 the smaller Christmas Island red crab. But according to the 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.439 Australian Department of Environment and Energy, between two thousand and 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.040 ten and two thousand twelve, some two thousand coconut crabs 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.200 died on the roads of Christmas Island. They kept track 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.640 of the fatalities and they actually posted fluorescent pink circles 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.520 by the roadside drew a mind motorists to drive carefully. Now. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.640 I think we've mentioned that the coconut crabs are relatives 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:51.720 of the hermit crabs, and if you see them, they 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.040 almost kind of look like gigantic hermit crabs. But what 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.520 we know is that hermit crabs will claim shells that 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.959 they find in their environment and inhabit them as protection. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.000 Do uh do do we see anything like that in 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.120 the in the rubber crab or the coconut crab. Not 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.640 in the adults. So the adults don't use shells at all. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:15.120 They're beyond that. Instead, the abdomen is is tucked partially 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.600 underneath the body, and they have a series of hardened 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.800 plates that provide covering along with the bruskley tufts of 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.679 skin along the rest of the abdomen. On my own shell, yeah, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.760 I mean, what would they even climb inside football helmets? 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:33.360 But Fate whispers to the warrior, a shell is needed. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.839 The warrior whispers back, I am the shell. What is 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.720 that from? No, it's some saying that's in It's in 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.040 like one of the Mission Impossible movies. It's on T 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.160 shirts and stuff. It's one of those like no fear 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.800 T shirt slogans. It's on T shirts. You say, yeah, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.520 I don't know where it originally. Are you saying it 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.160 should be in our T shirt shop accessible via stuff 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.560 to put your mind? No, I don't think so, just 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.560 throwing it out there. Okay. So, even though the adults 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.640 don't use the shells, juvenile coconut crabs do seem to 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.679 employ the shell method of hermit crabs for protection, But 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.280 the juveniles are hard to observe because they are often burrowed. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.520 That's a similar to what we saw with the red 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.240 crabs of Christmas Island. Like the the younger crabs, the 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.480 ones that have not reached adulthood yet, they're going to 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:16.199 try and just stay out of the thick of it 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.120 until they're they're they've reached the appropriate size and um, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.160 the adults incidentally, they mold underground and special burrows, so 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.960 they'll they'll they'll just dig down into this kind of 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.640 spherical chamber and that's where they'll do all their molting 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.800 and then they'll come back up. Now, coconut crabs are 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.200 mostly sort of a deep blue in color, and they 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:37.800 tend to look kind of you see footage of and 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.559 they look kind of like brown fish, but you'll see 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.960 kind of bits of blue. Sometimes there's a tinge of 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.840 red in places. It becomes kind of like a weird 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.959 off purple. Yeah. And then of course they have claws. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.920 They have a large left claw a smaller right claw, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:55.480 and it's kind of hard to pick up on the 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.080 size differential when you're just looking at them unless you 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.880 look closely, I find uh. But then they have two 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.160 pairs of long walking legs and a smaller pair of 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.080 appendages that are used for mating and egg manipulation. Now 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.000 these are land crabs, so do they have anything to 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.120 do with the water. Well, we see a some more 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.719 situation as with the the the the red crabs that 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.720 we talked about in the last episode. So they have 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.760 only the stigial gills and they'll actually drown if left 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.280 in water for more than an hour. The guilt tissue 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.360 is given over to a highly vascular what I often 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.800 I've seen described as lung tissue with lung in quotation marks, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.040 but for for land lubber breathing. Yeah, these are land crabs. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.520 These are the crabs of the forests. All right, let's 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.080 take a quick break and when we come back we 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:46.280 will discuss Charles Darwin's encounters with the coconut crabs. Than alright, 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.320 we're back. So you know, Charles Darwin himself wrote about 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.120 coconut crabs in his eighteen thirty nine work The Voyage 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.360 of the Beagle. This was in his chapter on Keeling Island. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.560 What was known as Keeling Island then, I think it's 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.480 also now known as the Coke Coasts Islands or Territory, 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.280 which is another group of islands in the Indian Ocean. 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:09.640 And so Darwin's observations were interesting. He starts by writing, quote, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.720 I have before alluded to a crab which lives on 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.000 the cocoa nuts. It is very common. I love he 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.880 hyphenates cocoa nuts. It is very common on all parts 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.120 of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size. 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.240 It is closely allied or identical with the beer ghost Latro, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.120 so he basically he's already talking about the same animal. Uh. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.240 The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.800 heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with others 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.760 weaker and much narrower. It would at first be thought 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.360 quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.200 nut covered with the husk, but Mr Leask assures me 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.000 that he has repeatedly seen this affected. The crab begins 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.680 by tearing the husk fiber by fiber, and always from 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.920 that end under which the three eye holes are situated. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.520 When this is comple leaded, the crab commences hammering with 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.400 his heavy claws on one of the eye holes till 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.280 an opening is made, Then turning around its body by 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.400 the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers, 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:17.080 it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.800 as curious a case of instinct as I have ever 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.960 heard of, and likewise of adaptation and structure between two 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.520 objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.440 of nature as a crab and a coconut tree. Maybe 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.840 I'm missing something, But I honestly don't see what he 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.480 thinks is so strange about that the crab is a 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.240 creature of the dark, infernal depth, and the coconut is 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.840 is the fruit of heaven. I don't know one is 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.760 one is high the other low. I mean, because one 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.560 of the things I'm at it when you look at 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.600 a coconut crab, I mean it kind of looks like 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.680 a coconut. Yeah, yeah, that is strange. I mean, I'm 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.800 not saying like Darwin is dense here. Obviously, you know, 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.200 his insights about nature are usually pretty interesting, even when 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.680 he's wrong. Uh, I'm not. I'm not seeing what's so 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.200 strange about that. That seems like a very natural kind 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.000 of relationship. But I don't know. Maybe we're just used 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.400 to thinking post star winning and thoughts about this kind 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.600 of thing. And I'll have a little more on coconut 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.480 crabs eating coconuts. A little later on in the episode, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.120 Oh yes, yes, uh so, he points out a few 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.639 other things. He says that the crab is active in 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.200 the daytime, but every night it goes to the sea 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.600 to moisten it skills. And this seems contradicted by modern 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.040 reports in which I've read that the coconut crab is 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.920 not exclusively nocturnal, but it likes nocturnal activity sort of 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:34.960 prefers it, right, This is what I read too, that 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:36.680 it it will come out at night, but it also 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.080 it will come out if it's a cloudy day. And 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.480 it also it's very I think an environmentally informed. So 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.400 the coconut crab is living in an area where humans 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.800 or say dogs or whatever are going to mess with it, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.359 that might impact how often it comes out. But if 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.600 they have free range and they're just gonna do whatever, 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.560 So yeah, it sounds like his report could be wrong. Here. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.520 He says they live in burrows, that they dig under 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.840 the roots of trees, and that they make beds in 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.000 their burrows out of the fibers of husks that they 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.359 tear from coconuts. And I have I I have looked 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.880 for modern evidence of that I have not found that 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.800 anything about that. I didn't run across it either. I 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.040 certainly ran across observations that you will find like shredded 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.280 bits of coconut husk in areas where the crabs live, 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.400 but I think that is probably due to what they 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:34.560 do to coconuts and not any kind of like nesting ritual. Yeah. Interesting. Uh. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.960 If anybody out there knows of any evidence of that, 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.840 we would like to see it. Also Darwin on eating 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.560 the largest terrestrial arthropod, quote, these crabs are very good 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.600 to eat. Moreover, under the tail of the larger ones 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.760 there is a massive fat which, when melted, sometimes yields 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.320 as much as a quart bottle full of limpid oil. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.520 He relays reports that the robber crabs climb up trees 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.000 to get coconuts, but doubts this is true. Other reports 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:03.960 say that they live only on the nuts that have 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.320 already fallen to the ground. And uh. And he also 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.480 says quote to show the wonderful strength of the front 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.080 pair of pincers, I may mention that Captain Morrisby can 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.159 find one in a strong tin box which had held biscuits, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.000 the lid being secured with wire, but the crab turned 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.160 down the edges and escaped. In turning down the edges, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.720 it actually punched many small holes quite through the tin. Uh. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.160 So we must return to the subject of these tin 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.000 piercing claws in a bit now. As a side note, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:36.960 I so, I was trying to find if there was 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.479 any evidence of the coconut crabs making husk beds in 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.200 their in their nests, and I kept I was googling 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:50.240 things like do coconut crabs make uh nests of coconut 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.640 husks or something? But every time I typed do coconut 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:58.000 crabs make Google wanted to auto complete Do coconut crabs 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.160 make good pets? What is wrong with this world? Why 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.960 is that what it's telling me to look up? Yeah? 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.440 I didn't. I did not research anything about keeping them 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:10.480 as pets, but it seems like they would seem like 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.600 a good idea. I mean, for one thing, they're just 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:14.800 a larger creature that seems like it needs to roam 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.640 around and live a fairly nomadic lifestyle. On the other hand, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.080 there there are varieties of hermit crabs that it seemed 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:24.280 to be more established as pets. Um not every species, 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.920 but a few particular species. They given the tin box story, 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:29.440 it seems like they might be a little bit hard 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.080 to confine. Yeah, and yeah, and then the other thing too. 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.359 When I first saw them, the footage I foresaw of 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.320 them in that that documentary we talked about, they look 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:44.360 like brown fly covered um carrying gobblers. So I'm not 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.360 sure to what extent that you see that and you're like, yes, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.359 I want one of those in my house. Yeah, I 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.679 mean they, like many crabs, they are opportunistic omnivores. So 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.280 even if they do in a way specialize in coconuts, 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.479 they also, uh, they will eat carry in I think 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.480 we already mentioned that, right. Yeah, they are into meat 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.640 when they can get it, even weird sources of meat 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:07.800 you might not expect. In fact, there there are viral 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.159 videos of them. I don't know if this is common. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.600 It seems like this is probably not super common, but 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.120 there there have been videos posted on the internet of 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:21.160 these crabs like attacking and killing live animals, like live birds. Yeah. 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:22.560 I was looking at one of these as well. The 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.639 cut of it, at least that I saw, I was 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.680 unclear exactly how they came counter one another. Yes, that's 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.119 a very good point. It cuts in in the middle 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.080 of their encounter, so it could be that the bird 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.120 attacked the crab or they just stumbled into each other 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.359 by accident. So I wouldn't want to imply that the 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.880 crabs are like hunting the birds, but clearly if if 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.120 they were given the chance, they would they would kill 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.000 and eat a bird. Yeah, um, yeah, they're pretty fierce 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.480