Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, there,
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. We've just never been
Speaker 1: able to let the whole Amelia Earhart thing go, not
Speaker 1: just us here at how Stuff Works, you know, the
Speaker 1: population at large. This legendary pilot disappeared eighty years ago,
Speaker 1: but we're still looking for her remains and those of
Speaker 1: her navigator, Fred Noonan. Just this year, in an expedition
Speaker 1: involving forensic dogs led by the International Group for Historic
Speaker 1: Aircraft Recovery, a k A Tiger was sent to the
Speaker 1: island in the South Pacific where her plane is thought
Speaker 1: to have crashed. The word on the proverbial street, however,
Speaker 1: is that air Heart's remains were probably gobbled up by
Speaker 1: coconut crabs scientific name Burgess Latro, and some of her
Speaker 1: bones subsequently hauled off to their layers. Coconut crabs are
Speaker 1: an oversized species of hermit crab. In fact, they're the
Speaker 1: world's largest land dwelling arthropod. These monsters can weigh up
Speaker 1: to nine pounds or four kims and normally eat coconuts, obviously,
Speaker 1: but we'll also snack on other available fruits, nuts, and leaves.
Speaker 1: They've also been known to enjoy a little meat from
Speaker 1: time to time. Your average coconut crab probably wouldn't turn
Speaker 1: its nose carapass up at a live rat, should the
Speaker 1: roadent be unlucky enough to fall into its hole. The
Speaker 1: crabs also have an excellent sense of smell for hunting
Speaker 1: out their next meal. Depending on who you talk to,
Speaker 1: the mystery around Earhart's disappearance can get really complicated, really quickly.
Speaker 1: What is known is that on July two seven, during
Speaker 1: their attempt to circumnavigate the Earth by plane, Earhart and
Speaker 1: Noonan took off from Lay, New Guinea headed for Holland
Speaker 1: Island in the South Pacific. Unfortunately, they never made it.
Speaker 1: The last position they reported was near the Numanu Islands,
Speaker 1: fifty miles that's about five hundred and sixty kilometers to
Speaker 1: the southeast. In nineteen forty a British officer named Gerard
Speaker 1: Gallagher found a partial human skeleton and a sextant box
Speaker 1: on an island called Nikoma ro Ro in the Republic
Speaker 1: of care body basically the exact location of her last transmission.
Speaker 1: Other items age are freckle, ointment and the rubber sole
Speaker 1: of a shoe were found later. The skeletal remains found
Speaker 1: by Gallagher were somehow lost, but not before a physician
Speaker 1: named David Hoodless took measurements. A group of doctors reviewed
Speaker 1: the notes of both Gallagher and Hoodless and decided the
Speaker 1: bones belonged to a tall female of European descent. It
Speaker 1: was Gallagher who first speculated that the smaller bones of
Speaker 1: the skeleton found on Nicomorro must have been hauled away
Speaker 1: by coconut crabs. The animals are large and voracious, and
Speaker 1: he seems to have gotten the idea from the locals,
Speaker 1: who are basically like, Yeah, coconut crabs hallway human bones
Speaker 1: all the time. However, a seven experiment run by Tiger
Speaker 1: attempted to see if coconut crabs might haul away the
Speaker 1: bones of a pig carcass, and although many of them
Speaker 1: came to feed on it, no large bones were lugged
Speaker 1: off into the forest. So though it's possible Amelia Earhart
Speaker 1: was eaten and her bones dispersed by coconut crabs, nobody
Speaker 1: really knows for now. Today's episode was written by Jesselyn
Speaker 1: Shields and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other Cretaceous topics. Visit our home Planet
Speaker 1: House to works dot com