Coconut Crabs

Apparently these are a thing.

This, apparently, is a coconut crab. It’s a giant crab that lives on land. It’s big enough to hunt birds and small mammals. They can grow to be about 36″ in size. Although mostly solitary, it’s possible that they can work in teams to drag large prey away and eat it. And they are the stars of my nightmares now.

Apparently they are strong enough to crack coconuts, which makes them stronger than me. I use power tools and even then it’s a stretch.

Only in the Seychelles

Luckily, the coconut crab’s habitat is limited to a small region of the world. They live on islands in the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific near the Indian Ocean. So unless someone imports the thing into the US, it’s not coming here. And no one is importing—… oh crap. Well that’s it, we’re done.

Night fever, night fever…

To make things so, so much worse, these big boys apparently mostly hunt at night, when they have been known to steal things for no good reason. Well hey, they can have whatever they steal. I’m not going after it.

I mean, a giant multilegged thingie comes into my house and wants to steal my cookware, well that’s it. I’m not only getting new cookware, I’m getting a new house. You don’t have to tell me twice.

Who’s the alpha now?

Despite being made of pure nightmare fuel, it turns out that plain old people are still quite handily defeating the coconut crab. First of all, they’re edible. Although apparently they can eat things which then make them poisonous, in most cases they are quite edible and tasty, assuming you can catch one. And I have to imagine that one crab would feed a fairly large family, making them an easier dish to prepare than, say, 20 normal size crabs.

In fact due to hunting and habitat encroachment, it seems these furry little monsters are losing the battle for survival. Whenever they live somewhere populated by humans, their populations tend to shrink. They’re really only thriving in areas where people don’t go. And to be honest, I don’t want to go wherever they are.

I’m sure one of you out there thinks they are cute

I’m just now learning about these massive movie-villain-esque creatures. And to be honest I know all I need to. Basically, I know to stay away. And that’s all I need to know. I haven’t been doing a lot of world traveling lately, and I bet you haven’t either. We all know why, let’s not dwell on it. But when I do plan a trip, I will be researching whether or not there are coconut crabs there. And when I find a place where there are coconut crabs, I won’t go there.

But I’m sure that at least one reader is prepared to tell me that coconut crabs are cute, and how they want one. Please leave a comment below, so I know who I will definitely not be visiting this year. Ewwww!