A Crab to be Reckoned With
You don’t want this bastard on your plate, or in your pants
Shit, I’m bored.
The other day, as I was wishing an epic case of crabs, the really hungry kind, on someone I used to know, I happened upon a story about a critter I’d never heard of. The Coconut Crab. Talk about synchronicity!
No less than the British naturalist who some Trumpsters love to hate, Charles Darwin, called this crustacean “monstrous.” And, from what I’ve learned, this hard-shelled creeper is truly the stuff of nightmares.
According to MentalFloss.com, Coconut Crabs, a type of Hermit Crab, are indigenous to islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans. And they are ginormous, spanning up to nine pounds and three feet from leg to leg. Think “size of a small dog.”
What makes them even more frightening is that these mofos are climbers. Garbage cans, trees, tall buildings…it doesn’t matter. They can scale nearly everything.
“Hey, you asshats who deserve it: One could probably scurry up a leg and into your pants before you get to the end of this story.”
I said I was bored.
The diet of a Coconut Crab is vast. Naturally, they devour coconuts, hence the name, which bulks up their size, considerably, but, they’ll eat damn near everything else, as well, including dead and decaying flesh, their own body parts (once they’re done molting), and each other!
Pretty rogue, no?
When you consider that their claws are powerful enough to rip open a frickin’ coconut, imagine what havoc they can wreak on living things, like birds, which they hunt and kill, in particularly heinous ways that I won’t share with you, and small mammals like rodents. Yet, Coconut Crabs don’t shy away from bigger prey as they’ve been known to tear apart live pigs. What’s more, if feeling threatened, they may even try to take down Homo Erectus.
As you might expect, given their savage nature, there’s not a female Coconut Crab that will ever win a Crustacean Mother of the Year award as they release their young almost immediately after hatching, into the ocean, where they’re left to fend for themselves.
Want to know more? Sure you do!
It has been suggested that Coconut Crabs made a meal of Amelia Earhart.
A wild theory to be sure, but check it out: Three weeks after the famed aviator disappeared in 1937, after flying her plane over the Pacific Ocean, researchers discovered a piece of bone in the exact location where Earhart went missing. They speculated that, while she lay dying, she was overcome by the colossal crabs and devoured like a Twinkie after a sugar fast.
Enough of that.
Beware their grip.
If a Coconut Crab gets hold of a digit, you can kiss it goodbye. This devil can easily break a bone in two and will hold on until you beg for mercy. But you won’t as you’ll be too busy shitting your drawers.
Coconut Crabs are antisocial.
Now this, I can understand, given the present climate and preponderance of idiots in our midst. Similarly, these beasts barely tolerate their own kind and will attack if they sense a territorial threat. If they absolutely must have to share space with other Coconut Crabs, say at feeding time, they will engage in “ritual claw waving,” a crab’s way to say, “Don’t fuck with me.” They’re also given to burrowing deep into the sand to avoid the sun’s burning rays.
Some people think Coconut Crabs are good eatin.’
Pacific Islanders, being of tougher stuff than you and I, routinely catch and eat these grouchy bastards, in the belief that they’re not only a delicacy but a libido booster. Until one gets hold of a dick and then all bets are off.
What goes up, has a hard time coming down.
As previously stated, Coconut Crabs are adept at climbing trees but turn into schlubs on the way down. They have a nifty workaround, though. They free-fall, but limit their acrobatics to fifteen-foot drops. Imagine one of these behemoths landing on your head!
Coconut Crabs may be endangered.
Hell. What isn’t nowadays? That said, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of info on the fate of Coconut Crabs, other than people, as in us, are their most significant predator and over-harvesting is a concern. But, this particular species grows so slowly, that by the time they reach the stage where we’re ready to fuck them up, we’ve moved onto some other creature or piece of land we can fuck up. We’re impatient that way. Of course, there are other concerns such as climate change and ocean acidification, making it tough for larvae and juvenile Coconut Crabs to grow their exoskeletons.
“Deal with it, guys. We all got our own shit.”
A mystery no longer?
The more I delve into the disappearance of Earhart, the more I believe that Coconut Crabs made a meal out of Amelia. In 2007, to test this theory, a team of scientists left a pig carcass in the same spot where the pioneering pilot’s remains washed up on the beach. Or, what was believed to be her remains. In no time at all, a rough-house gang of Coconut Crabs emerged from their burrows and tore the carcass to shreds.
Equally, if not more disturbing, was the pile of toothpicks found alongside of the ravaged pig carcass.
Damn.
When all is said and done, if these cranky crustaceans are in danger of becoming extinct, I say, let ’em go. There’s enough savagery in the world.
© Sherry McGuinn, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s soon-to-be-ex-manager is currently NOT pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.
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