Article on Hermit Crabs in the Wild

moire_eel · Post by **moire_eel** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:25 am

A friend sent me this link because it involved crabs. The article is about the possibility that a set of bones found on a Pacific atoll in 1940 could have been the remains of Amelia Earhart. An experiment was done to see how long it would take a body to reach the state of decomposition/scattering that matched that of the bones found. A leg of lamb was used in the expermient, and the main scavengers it attracted were Strawberry land hermit crabs. Of course the point of the experiment was to track the rate at which the bones were cleaned, but it is interesting to see from the pictures that the peak period of interest in the meat seems to be on day four. The picture of the blue cocount crab is neat, too. I didn't know they could be that color.http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/ ... abexp.html

Crabby Abby · Post by **Crabby Abby** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:01 am

That's an interesting article and I'd never seen a coconut crab before so I tooled the web a bit to educate myself. They can get up to 3' long and weigh 40lbs! But check this little video clip if you have Real Player.They're nowhere near as pretty or colorful as the little guy in the first article when they mature apparently but it's a good clip and their size will blow you away.http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/inver ... type=rpMed

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:23 am

LMAO! I found that article on line months ago, but someone had been jerking their chain and told them that perlatus were juvenile coconut crabs. So I had the honor of helping them correct their website.But the passage about the perlatus tasting sleeping scientists cracks me up. Can you imagine? Snoring away in the balmy tropical night and awakened by a sharp pain in the arm, only to find a strawberry standing on you licking its chops so to speak. So: word of advice to you folks: Don't sleep with your crabs. They will try to eat you.

kuplakrabs · Post by **kuplakrabs** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:43 pm

That was a neat read! Amazing how fast they completely disposed of that leg. Thank you so much for sharing it oops, I meant shoulder LOL

Nicole · Post by **Nicole** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:59 pm

From the article: "One does not usually think of crabs as picky eaters."Well, normally, no. But just try and throw that lamb shoulder in my tank! I guarantee in two weeks it'll still be there. Thanks for a great and interesting read, moire_eel! It makes me feel good to think of the little guys hard at work cleaning the beaches. CSI: Hermit Crab?