DINNER TIME! St. Croix Resident Finds 2 Large Coconut Crabs In Back Yard

DINNER TIME! St. Croix Resident Finds 2 Large Coconut Crabs In Back Yard

CHRISTIANSTED — They say when Charles Darwin first saw a coconut crab in person he called it “monstrous.”

They say coconut crabs might be the reason why Amelia Earhart’s body was never found in the South Pacific.

They regularly kill large birds — and can rip open a coconut in seconds with its bare claws.

So when an erstwhile Little Princess Hill resident went to take out the trash this weekend — he got a welcome surprise — dinner would be served!

DINNER TIME! St. Croix Resident Finds 2 Large Coconut Crabs In Back Yard
Coconut crab pinching a human

That’s because the person, who asked that his name not be used in the article (the crab is big — but not big enough to feed a whole island) saw two HUGE coconut crabs in his backyard.

He was first alerted to the Birgus latro, also known as coconut crab, the largest land-living arthropod in the world, by the sound of his dog barking at them.

It took him a few minutes to take the beast’s size in — and when he first came upon the coconut crab — he instinctively jumped back — afraid that the gnarly creature might grab him.

The now proud owner of the biggest coconut crab on St. Croix is going to feed the crab in its cage for a couple weeks (to purge it of impurities) and then invite the neighbors over for a socially-distanced boiled crab fest!

Apparently, the coconut crab was looking for some dinner of his own in the garbage can — now the crab itself will become dinner for one lucky St. Croix resident.

The coconut crab stretches three feet long, and though it only weighs eight or nine pounds, it’s strong enough to carry more than six times its own weight.

DINNER TIME! St. Croix Resident Finds 2 Large Coconut Crabs In Back Yard
A coconut crab feasts on a large sea bird it pulled from a palm tree. (Video by National Geographic.)

The coconut crab is more than just creepy to look at — their pincers are some of the most powerful and most dangerous weapons in the animal kingdom. If its claws clamp down on your leg, it will grip you with as much power as a bite from a lion’s jaws.

They can do some terrifying things with those powerful claws. Usually, of course, they don’t use them on humans. As the name suggests, the coconut crab’s main source of food is coconuts. The strength they show when they eat them is unnerving, as they can tear a coconut apart with nothing more than their bare claws.

Although coconut crabs are normally found only in the South Pacific region … so were lionfish at one point in history — lionfish have now become an invasive species throughout the Caribbean including the U.S. Virgin Islands — let’s hope the coconut crab does not pull the same stunt!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/watch-giant-coconut-crab-attack-unsuspecting-bird-spd

DINNER TIME! St. Croix Resident Finds 2 Large Coconut Crabs In Back Yard