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Christmas Island Red Crab — printable fact sheet
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Christmas Island Red Crab
Gecarcoidea natalis
Christmas Island's red crabs are terrestrial: they breathe air, live in burrows in the rainforest floor, and would drown if held under water for long. But they cannot escape the sea, because their larvae must develop in it, so once a year the entire adult population — tens of mi…
Did you know?
- Although they are land crabs, Christmas Island Red Crabs must return to the ocean to breed, releasing their eggs directly into the sea.
- Where crazy ants wiped out the crabs, the forest floor changed dramatically — leaf litter piled up, seedlings that crabs would have eaten shot up, and the understorey thickened, showing that the crabs had been shaping the entire forest structure. The island closes roads, builds crab bridges over highways, and installs underpasses during the migration. Adult crabs plug their burrows and sit out the dry season for months in humid seclusion, emerging only when the rains come.
What I learned
Draw the christmas island red crab
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