Seeing this amazing arthropod, anyone faint of heart will shudder in horror and surprise - after all, there is nothing in the world more interesting and, at the same time, more terrible than the coconut crab. In any case, among arthropods - after all, he is rightfully considered their largest representative.
1. The coconut crab has many other “names”: for example, thief crab or palm thief - after all, this strange arthropod actually steals its prey. Travelers of past centuries who visited the islands located in the Western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean talk about how the coconut crab hides from prying eyes in the dense greenery of palm trees in order to then suddenly grab its prey lying right under a tree or nearby From him.
2. The coconut crab (lat. Birgus latro) is not actually a crab at all, despite the striking similarity to the arthropod relative mentioned in the name. This is a land hermit crab, belonging to the species of decapod crayfish.
Strictly speaking, calling the palm thief a land arthropod is also a stretch, since part of its life is spent in the sea elements, and even tiny crustaceans are born in the water column. Newborn babies with a defenseless soft abdominal cavity busily crawl along the bottom of a reservoir in search of a reliable home, which can serve as a nut shell or an empty mollusk shell.
3. In “childhood,” birgus latro is not too different from a hermit crab: it drags its shell around with it and spends almost all its time in water. But once it emerges from the larval state and leaves the water, it is no longer able to return there, and at some point, even carry a shell-house with it. Unlike the abdomens of hermit crabs, its abdomen is not an Achilles heel and gradually hardens, and the tail curls under the body, protecting the body from cuts. Thanks to special lungs, he begins to breathe out of water.
In truth, most legends noted precisely this feature - the first Europeans who arrived on the islands described coconut crabs as creatures hiding in the foliage of trees with long claws that suddenly reached out to the ground and captured prey, including sheep and goats. Scientists have confirmed that birgus latro has great strength and can lift up to 30 kg of weight. However, they found that the crab uses its abilities to drag cargo from place to place, preferring to feed on dead animals, crabs and fallen fruits.
4. How do crayfish manage to exist equally comfortably both in water and on land? It turns out that wise nature provided them with two breathing instruments at once: lungs, ventilated by air on the surface of the earth, and gills, allowing them to breathe under water. But over time, the second organ loses its functions, and palm thieves have to completely switch to a terrestrial lifestyle.
5. Those wishing to meet such a miracle would have to go to the tropics - coconut crabs are found on the islands of the Indian Ocean and on some Western Pacific islands. It is not easy to see them in daylight: palm thieves are nocturnal, and in sunny times they hide in rock crevices or in sandy burrows lined with coconut fibers - this helps maintain the required level of humidity in the home.
6. And although the version that the crayfish is capable of splitting a coconut with its front claws failed miserably, its limbs are nevertheless developed enough to nimbly climb the trunk of a palm tree or bite off a person’s phalanx of a finger. And cancer is really partial to coconuts: the nutritious pulp is the main dish on its menu, to which it owes its “coconut” name.
7. Sometimes the diet of crayfish is enriched with pandan fruits, and according to some sources, palm thieves sometimes eat their own kind. A hungry crayfish unerringly finds the nearest “restaurant”: its internal navigator is its excellent sense of smell, which leads it to the food source, even if it is many kilometers away.
8. As for the “thief status” of cancer, this is due to its uncontrollable desire to drag into its hole all sorts of things that are not good - edible and not so good.
Coconut crab meat is not only considered a delicacy, but also an aphrodisiac, which is why these arthropods are actively hunted. To prevent their complete extinction, some countries have strict restrictions on the harvesting of coconut crabs.
9. The body of the coconut crab, like all decapods, is divided into the front part (cephalothorax), on which there are 10 legs, and the stomach. The front, largest pair of legs has large claws (claws), and the left claw is much larger than the right. The next two pairs, like those of other hermits, are large, powerful with sharp ends, and are used by coconut crabs to travel along vertical or inclined surfaces. The fourth pair of legs is significantly smaller than the first three, which allows young coconut crabs to settle in mollusk shells or coconut shells and provide protection. Adults use this pair for walking and climbing. The last, very small pair, which is usually hidden inside the shell, is used by the females to care for the eggs and by the males for mating.
10. Except for the larval stage, coconut crabs cannot swim, and they will certainly drown if they remain in the water for more than an hour. To breathe, they use a special organ called gill lungs. This organ can be interpreted as a developmental stage between the gills and lungs, and is one of the coconut crab's most important adaptations to its environment. The branchial lungs contain tissues similar to those found in the gills, but are suitable for absorbing oxygen from the air rather than from water.
11. The coconut crab has a well-developed sense of smell, which it uses to search for food. Like most aquatic crabs, they have specialized organs located on their antennae that detect the concentration and direction of scent.
12. During the day, these arthropods sit out in burrows or rock crevices, which are lined with coconut fibers or leaves to increase the humidity in the home. While resting in its burrow, the coconut crab closes the entrance with one claw to maintain a humid microclimate in the burrow, which is necessary for its respiratory organs.
13. As the name suggests, this crab feeds on coconuts, and is in fact able to climb up to a height of 6 meters on a coconut tree, where it uses its powerful claws to pinch off coconuts if they are not already available on the ground. If a fallen coconut does not split when it falls, the crab will gut it for a week or even two until it gets to the juicy pulp of the nut. If the crab gets tired of this dreary work, he lifts the coconut up the tree and throws it down to make his work easier. Descending back to the ground, they sometimes fall, but without damage to their health they can survive a fall from a height of 4.5 meters. The coconut crab will not refuse other fruits, newborn turtles and carrion. They have also been observed catching and eating Polynesian rats.
14. Another name is palm thief, he received it for his love of everything shiny. If a spoon, fork, or other shiny object gets in the way of a crab, you can be sure that he will certainly try to drag it into his hole.
15. From the beginning of June to the end of August, the breeding season begins for palm thieves. The courtship process lasts long and tediously, but mating itself occurs quite quickly. The female carries fertilized eggs for several months on the underside of her abdomen. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the female goes down to the seashore at high tide and releases the larvae into the water. Over the next three to four weeks, the larvae floating in the water go through several stages of development. After 25 - 30 days, small crabs sink to the bottom, settle in the shells of gastropods, and prepare to migrate to land. At this time, babies sometimes visit land, and gradually losing the ability to breathe under water, they finally move to the main habitat. Coconut crabs reach sexual maturity about five years after hatching, but do not reach their maximum size until they are 40 years old.
16. Palm thieves live in the tropics, on the islands of the Indian and western Pacific oceans. Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean has the highest population density of coconut crabs in the world.
17. Swedish and Australian scientists have confirmed the veracity of all the stories about coconut crabs. Thus, residents of the Pacific Islands claimed that they could smell, for example, meat or ripe fruit several kilometers away. And indeed, the special baits placed by the researchers immediately attracted the attention of the thieving crabs, who nevertheless disdained the ordinary pieces of bread that ordinary crabs are greedy for.
18. The function of a janitor is, of course, not bad and useful, however, since Birgus latro is a predominantly nocturnal creature and not very friendly, local residents are not particularly delighted when they stumble upon it. The decrease in its numbers forced local authorities to set a limit on catching birgus latro. In Papua New Guinea it is prohibited to include it in restaurant menus, on the island of Saipan it is prohibited to catch crabs with a shell less than 3.5 cm, and also from June to September, during the breeding season.
19. On the inner surface of the walls of the gill cavities of this land descendant of hermit crabs, grape-shaped folds of skin develop, in which numerous blood vessels branch. These are real lungs, allowing the use of oxygen from the air filling the gill cavities. The lungs are ventilated due to the movements of the scaphognathite, as well as due to the ability of animals from time to time to raise and lower the carapace, for which special muscles are used.
It is remarkable that the gills are also preserved, although they are relatively small in size. Removing the gills did not harm breathing at all; on the other hand, the crayfish completely lost the ability to breathe in water. The palm thief immersed in water died after 4 hours. The residual gills apparently do not function. The palm thief digs shallow burrows in the soil, which are lined with coconut fibers. Charles Darwin says that the natives on some islands select these fibers from the holes of the palm thief, which they need in their simple farming. Sometimes the palm thief is content with natural shelters - crevices in rocks, cavities in drained coral reefs, but even in such cases it uses plant material to line them, which retains high humidity in the housing.
The land hermit crab is a land crab that can drown if left in water for a long time. It lives in the Caribbean Sea, it is also common in Venezuela, the Bahamas, Belize, India, Florida, and the Virgin Islands. These crabs are also called tree crabs, tropical land hermit crabs, and Caribbean hermit crabs.
Description of the land hermit crab
There are 7 varieties of tropical land hermit crabs. These crabs reach a length of about 3 centimeters, the weight of an adult individual reaches 110 grams.
The body shape is cylindrical, elongated. The body is covered with small hairs. The front part of the body is protected by a hard shell, while the abdominal part is much softer.
Land hermit crabs have 5 pairs of legs. The first pair represents claws. With the help of the right claw, the crab eats, and the left one is used for protection, for example, in times of danger, it can close the entrance to its hole. Most crabs have purple claws, but they also come in lemon, brown or red. The second and third pair of crab legs are for walking. The last two pairs of legs are very small; they sometimes do not protrude from the shell.
Caribbean hermit crabs breathe using gills. There are 2 pairs of retractable antennae: long antennae are used for touch, and short antennae perform the function of smell. Land hermit crabs have good eyesight.
When the crab is outside the shell, its sex can be determined: the male has hairs on the last pair of legs, and there are no appendages on the abdominal cavity.
Lifestyle of land hermit crabs
Tree crabs are social animals that live in large groups. They are nocturnal, their peak activity is observed at 20:00. Land hermit crabs do not like high temperatures and the sun, so during the day they hide in small holes, under stones, logs, leaves, and the like.
Land hermit crabs live on the sandy shores of the Caribbean islands, at a distance of 1.8-3.5 kilometers from the water. They are found among coastal plants. They avoid swamps and places with dense vegetation. Hermit crabs prefer water with low salinity.
If a tropical land crab stays in water for too long, it will drown. Adults molt every 12-18 months, while juveniles molt several times a year. After molting, the crab chooses a new, larger shell.
At temperatures below 20 degrees, the activity of land hermit crabs decreases, and at temperatures below 18 degrees they hibernate. These crabs can make various sounds: chirping, crackling, croaking.
Tropical land hermit crabs feed at night. They are omnivorous scavengers. Their diet also includes cactus fruits and even fresh droppings of horses and cows. In captivity, their life expectancy can reach 11 years.
Reproduction of land hermit crabs
The breeding season for tree crabs is August-October. To mate, males and females have to leave their shells. Young females lay 800-1200 eggs, and adult females lay 40-50,000 eggs. The color of newly laid eggs is red-brown; within a month they turn blue or gray.
3 weeks after mating, the female goes to shallow water, her eggs are on her 5th leg, she collects them and places them on wet stones. The eggs are washed away by the waves into the water.
The larvae of land hermit crabs have several stages of development: zoe, then glaucotoe, then young crab. During metamorphosis, the larva settles to the bottom and then crawls out onto land.
Zoe is thin and long, its size reaches 3 millimeters. She has 2 large eyes. At this stage the larva feeds on plankton. Zoe moults 3-4 times, during which she grows.
After 4-5 molts, the larva enters the glaucotoe stage. At this stage, very small antennae appear, the eyes are located on stalks, and the first paws transform into claws. Glaucothoe resembles an adult crab in appearance. This stage lasts about a month, at the end of which the larva grows to 5 millimeters.
Before the last stage, young crabs begin to look for a shell. If a crab comes out of the sea without a shell, it usually dies.
On land, young crabs are active mainly at night, and during the day they hide in various cracks and crevices.
These crabs are kept in horizontal terrariums. The soil is partially filled with water, but the water level should be very low, since land hermit crabs drown easily.
Five hundred million years ago, in the waters of the Cambrian seas, among the feathery colonies of sea anemones, the ancestors of modern crustaceans swarmed along the bottom and swarmed in the mud. In the process of evolution, more than 70 thousand species of these creatures were formed on Earth, of which approximately 7 thousand species are crabs. What are these creatures now, where do they live and what are their sizes - the article talks about this.
What kind of creatures are crabs?
The word “crab” itself comes from the Dutch krab or German krabbe, a derivative of krabbein, which means “to crawl, crawl,” derived from the way these animals move.
Crabs are called short-tailed crayfish - a special order of crustaceans. Crayfish are a type of arthropod, so named because of the peculiar structure of their legs. The body of these animals is covered with a chitinous shell, which is an exoskeleton. As they grow, crabs shed their old, now small, shells, leaving their soft bodies defenseless. During the molting period, until the animal has grown a new hard shell, the crabs begin their breeding season.
Five pairs of legs were the reason for calling the crustaceans decapods. The front pair of legs, armed with claws, serve as crayfish arms and weapons. Different types of crayfish have different shapes and lengths of claws. There are individuals with claws of the same length, and there are creatures with claws of different lengths and shapes. The last pair in some aquatic species was transformed in the process of evolution into a kind of oars. Crabs cannot swim; they move along the ocean floor on their legs, mostly sideways.
Decapod crustaceans feed on mollusks, small fish, algae, carrion, and everything they find at the bottom or can catch themselves. Crayfish hunt and obtain food using claws, which can have different purposes. In some species, the larger claw is used for splitting hard shells or protection, and the smaller claw is used to cut soft food. Scientists discovered an interesting fact by observing the behavior of crustaceans: among them there are right-handers and left-handers.
Crabs differ from crayfish in the rounded shape of their shell, which protects the cephalothorax, internal organs and a short abdomen tucked under the carapace. An interesting feature of crab molting: when molting, the animal sheds its chitinous cover completely, including its eyes, legs, and the surface of its internal organs. After molting several times, an individual can regrow severed limbs. Young crabs molt much more often than adults. Some types of crabs molt for the rest of their lives as they are constantly growing. Among those that grow to the end of their days are the largest crabs in the world.
What are the biggest crabs?
Among the many species of crabs, there is no absolute leader in size, but several species are distinguished by very large individuals. Today, the record holder for size is the spider crab living in the Sea of Japan. The diameter of the carapace of a huge individual reaches 1.5 m, and the distance between the straightened claws is up to four meters. The weight of this specimen is more than 40 kg. But this is an isolated case; on average, the size of these arthropods is about half a meter across the shell and the claw span is up to three meters, and the weight is about 20 kg. These creatures supposedly live up to a hundred years.
The next largest crab is the king or Kamchatka crab. Individuals with a shell up to thirty centimeters wide and a leg span of up to 1.5 meters reach a weight of about 7 kg, and some specimens approach the ten-kilogram mark. This animal lives in the seas washing the shores of the Far East and in the Barents Sea, where it was artificially populated.
Slightly behind the king crab is the large land crab, known in Russia as brown, or edible. The body measures about 25 cm and weighs up to three and a half kilograms, making it one of the largest representatives of crustaceans. There are isolated cases where the brown crab reached larger sizes. The range covers the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Coconut crab
But large crabs live not only in the seas. The islands of the Indian Ocean are home to the world's largest land crab, the coconut crab. One of the names of this creature is palm thief, for its habit of dragging to itself everything that lies poorly and glitters. Although the palm thief looks like a crab, strictly scientifically it is not one. Rather, it is one of the varieties of hermit crab.
With a body measuring approximately 40 cm, this crayfish is the largest land arthropod. Adults reach a weight of around four kilos. The palm thief reaches a similar size by the age of forty, and their life expectancy exceeds sixty years.
Thieves are nocturnal, feeding on plant fruits, small animals or other representatives of their species. Its terrifying appearance makes it undesirable to meet it in the dark, but the animals themselves do not pose a threat to humans. Only if, when meeting a palm thief, you try to grab it, you can say goodbye to your fingers. The claws of this crayfish are adapted to crack coconuts, and the paws have enough strength to carry a load weighing thirty kilos.
During the day, the palm thief hides in holes dug in the sand or in crevices of coastal rocks. The crayfish lines its shelters with coconut fibers to protect it from drying out. Although the adult crab prefers to live on land due to its breathing habits, young crabs live in coastal waters for up to five years. By the age of five, the size of the coconut crab's carapace reaches 10 cm, and the gills are rebuilt to breathe atmospheric oxygen. At this age, a young thief moves to land, to a permanent place of residence, never to return to the sea to live.
Crabs reach sexual maturity at ten years of age. After this age, animals participate in the process of reproduction. Mating of crabs occurs at the moment of molting of females, when the new exoskeleton is still soft and does not interfere with the fertilization of eggs, which the female carries under her abdomen, holding with a pair of legs. Since males molt later than females, during the mating season they protect females from enemies. After the eggs mature, the female goes to the sea and lays eggs in the water at high tide. She does not go into the water at all, since she is no longer able to breathe under water.
Although thieves love solitude, from mid-June to the end of August the desire for procreation takes over and male crabs can smell their girlfriend at a distance of several kilometers. Crustaceans of this species have a very highly developed sense of smell, which distinguishes it from representatives of other types of crayfish. Receptors and a special olfactory organ, absent in other crabs, help them smell the scent of an individual of the opposite sex or the aroma of food.
Although the appearance of a crab may cause a state of horror in an unaccustomed person, the population of these extraordinary animals is decreasing every year. The massive catch of young mature individuals and young animals that have not reached maturity has led to a significant reduction in the populations of these crustaceans.
The meat of palm thieves, like other types of crabs, is a delicacy. Tasty, healthy meat of young animals is highly valued by gourmets around the world. Rich in fatty acids, proteins and iodine, it is considered dietary due to the lack of carbohydrates in it.
The meat of thieves is a generally recognized aphrodisiac, affecting both men and women. Due to such unique properties, the population of crayfish has greatly decreased, so the authorities of countries where there are populations of these animals have limited hunting for them in order to protect them from extinction.
To find out what the largest crab in the world is, see the following video.
Loading...
