Why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia

Why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia

The red crab, also known as the "land red crab, red land crab, Australian red crab", is scientifically known as the red crab on Christmas Island, and the red crab is relatively large, why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia? .

Why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia1

Due to the special climate of Christmas Island (in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia, near Java), the island is currently inhabited by about 120 million red crabs, and what we have seen on our trip is only a small part of it. At least 50 million red crabs participate in the Great Migration some time after November each year.

Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia, is the hottest tourist season in the region from October through December because of the incredible number of red crabs.

The migration cycle of this most common red crab on Christmas Island is closely tied to the seasons. Usually before the start of the rainy season, the crabs leave the inland forests in unison and head to the sea to spawn. During the crab migration (October to December), some of the island's roads are temporarily closed - to cars (passing by on foot is not restricted).

During the red crab migration season, Christmas Islanders come up with a number of safety measures to ensure that the crabs can migrate properly. Under the protection of the islanders, the red crabs are emboldened, waving their big pincers and crawling around, sometimes they will appear in the residents' homes, sometimes in front of the town's stores, and sometimes they will stop on the highway to take a rest in a big way! They probably know that no one is going to hurt the red crabs on Christmas Island anyway.

The first red crabs to reach the beach were resting on a rocky outcrop. Before reaching the beach, these crabs also have to go through a lot of obstacles of nine deaths, such as, falling out and going in the wrong direction, losing their lives on wheels, being trampled by bear children, being caught and eaten, being finished off by coconut crabs, and being wiped out by a regiment of other animals or birds.......

It is said that the red crabs usually need to go through a growth period of three to four years from birth to adulthood. It needs to start migrating about a month before the spawning season and once a year thereafter. It takes an average of seven days for an adult red crab to migrate from the inland forest to the beach to spawn, and these seven days are the most dangerous time for the crab.

In order to ensure that the red crab successfully completed the migration, the residents of Christmas Island is also painstakingly come up with a variety of ways to prevent the accidental death of the red crab. In addition to road closures and signage, so people have built route fences and specialized bridges and tunnels to prevent red crabs from being run over for crossing the road.

The "migration wall" built by local residents for the red crabs is also a protective measure.

Even if people try to avoid the death of red crabs during migration, they are sometimes attacked by their relatives. Coconut crabs are definitely a big hidden danger in the red crab migration route: coconut crabs often follow the red crab army to migrate together, they are not going to the beach to spawn, but waiting for "picking up" on the way - they don't attack the red crabs directly, but when they find that some red crabs are injured, the coconut crabs will swarm to the red crab. They don't attack the red crabs directly, but when they find one injured, the coconut crabs swarm over it and eat it.

The red crabs make their way safely to the beach after a harrowing journey. They first soak their bodies in seawater to replenish water and salt. The males then dig holes in the sand where the mating takes place and the females lay their eggs, before the adults return inland.

Red crabs climb a small cliff on the shore of Ethel's Beach on Christmas Island during the migratory "homeward journey" of the red crab.

As the tides change, the sea carries the eggs out to sea, and in about two weeks' time, countless tiny red crabs, only about five millimeters in length, will climb up the beach and migrate inland. At this point, the Christmas Island red crab migration will come to an end!

Why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia2

The annual migration of red crabs from Christmas Island is an attempt to reproduce. To do this, the red crabs need to leave the comfort of their caves in the bush and climb down to the sea to mate and lay their eggs.

What may seem like a few minutes' walk to humans is one of the greatest adventures in the lives of the red crabs. Red crabs like to stay in damp, cold places. Once they leave their burrows, their lives are exposed to unknown dangers. Loss of water and sun exposure are the number one killers of red crabs.

Once the rainfall decreases or stops, if the red crabs can not quickly find a cool place to escape the sun, they will soon die because of excessive water loss. The passage of vehicles is a disaster that the red crabs are not prepared for.

The red crab inhabits Christmas Island in the eastern Indian Ocean, more than 300 kilometers south of Java, Indonesia, and is under Australian jurisdiction.

Christmas Island is surrounded by sea and has more than 30 species of flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world. The Christmas Island red crab, a variant of the purple crab that lives in Southeast Asia, is an omnivore that eats the leaves and flowers that fall from these plants, as well as fruits, flowers and seedlings.

They prefer fresh green leaves, but will eat any fallen leaves. It is an omnivorous species and will eat dead crabs and birds, large African snails, and tasty' human garbage. There is little competition on the island and food resources are plentiful. The average lifespan is 35 years.

The red crabs each come out of their burrows and automatically form a large procession, with the stronger males going ahead and passing through a reddish area. There are no signposts for the direction of proceeding, and they rely on their sense of the sea's temperature to discern the direction.

As they are poor at avoiding obstacles, they cross both dwellings and parked cars. The distance from the nest to the coast varies. The shortest can be reached in about a week, the longest takes about 20 days.

Why are there so many red crabs on Christmas Island, Australia3

The red crab, also known as the "land red crab, red ground crab, Australian red crab", its scientific name is the Christmas Island red crab, the red crab is also relatively large, the carapace can be up to 116 millimeters in length, weighing 415-480 grams. And when running on the ground, many people also compared it to "baked red lobster", the distribution of this red crab is not widely distributed, mainly in the Indian Ocean on Christmas Island and Cocoa Island only a land crab.

As these islands are surrounded by the sea state, so the red crab to survive, will inevitably become a part of the food chain on the island, they are mainly to plant leaves and flowers to live, but also eat fruits, flowers and seedlings, and occasionally may eat other dead crabs and birds, African snails and so on, from which you can see, in fact, can eat a lot of food, so basically not possible! There is extinction, the death of the situation.

And the life of the red crab is also relatively long, the average life expectancy of 35 years, coupled with almost no competition on the island, so the population will certainly still be expanding, and in the future, maybe in the sky above the island, you can see the whole island into a red state.

So much red crab, can you eat? Stir fry, wine "cool"? Indeed, although the number of red crabs, but, it is really can not eat, in the Australian red crab, there is a poison named anthranilic acid substances, this material in the bee, some ants and caterpillar secretions can be found, however, this anthranilic acid is a toxic substance, if absorbed into the body, it will damage the gastric mucosa.

It can also aggravate other problems in the body if you are not careful. Although it has been studied to remove the toxins in the body of the red crab, but it is not recommended to cook at home, or it may lead to food poisoning. So it is not recommended to eat red crabs, will not be able to handle it, is certainly not blessed.

The red crab is a species best avoided, mainly because of the presence of toxins in the body, which requires vigilance. At the same time, in terms of the ecosystem, no matter where we should not be mainly edible organisms, most of the organisms in the ecosystem has a supporting role, if people do not protect them, the ecosystem may be a serious collapse, which is not only the impact of the collapse of the ecosystem is so simple, and may even trigger a chain effect.