Animalia Stupendium: The Coconut Crab

As adults, however, they outgrow their need for pilfered shells and instead develop a tough, leathery exoskeleton that provides ample protection on their scattered island habitats. They are the largest.

and shockingly, they may also even actively hunt living prey. Yes, biologists have in fact observed them sneak attacking red footed boobies in the night. No tree branch, it would seem, is safe from their hunger stealth roll success. The cocoanut crab benefits from great strength, with specimens able to lift

weights of thirty kilograms or sixty six pounds. And then there are the claws to consider, capable of closing with a force equal to eighty times the individual's own body mass, indeed making it more than capable of breaking into a coconut, as well as into the soft bodies of various birds, boobies, swallows, or otherwise pincer damage. The coconut crab is understood to be an evolutionary offshoot of the various hermit crab species.

This would have occurred some two point six to five point three million years ago, perhaps due to changes that robbed the robber crab here of its shelter options, forcing it to grow larger and tougher in order to thrive

in a shell free terrestrial environment. Now, to be sure, juvenile coconut crabs still make use of scaven shells, and we must also note that while the adults live and die on land and can never truly return to the ocean, they still must release their eggs eggs into the water in order to ensure the next generation of coconut crabs

in the ocean. The hatched free swimming shrimp like larvae called Zoea disperse, clinging to bits of vegetation, even coconut husks, for a period of several weeks before becoming equally free swimming and shrimp like glaucothowe, which find suitable shells on the seabed then they begin their march towards the various islands that will serve their fully terrestrial, juvenile and adult forms,

an amazing journey. Humans never get to live as free swimming larvae, I mean, except for us wizards in certain circumstances. Of course, there are more mysteries concerning the coconut crab to consider, But for now I must retire my wizard's quill and allow my familiars some respite. But I shall, I'll return with even more wonders of the natural world. Hi, this is Robert Lamb. Thanks once more to the wizard

Argomannanes for joining us on the episode. Sources for it included coconut crabs, the bird eating behemoth thriving on isolated tropical islands by Emily Osterloff Natural History Museum, the San Francisco Zoo, ruler of the atoll, the world's largest land invertebrate by Mark E. Lydra Frontiers and Ecology in the Environment, twenty seventeen. A mighty claw pinching force of the coconut crab, the largest terrestrial crustacean by Oca at All Plos one

twenty sixteen. Pinching simulation of the coconut crab considering the three D shape and internal characteristics of the robust claw exoskeleton Inowey at All Results in Engineering twenty twenty five, Status of the coconut crab Burgess latro in Neo by a logi at All Pacific Community twenty fifteen, and to a very limited extent, my own recent observations in Raasha ONMPAC. Thanks as always to the excellent JJ Possway for producing

this episode. If you wish to contact Argomandanes with recommendations for future episodes, you could send an email to contact at stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.