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