The Coconut Crab – Lessons in the Big and Marginally Dangerous

So, let’s start this all off by showing you the picture that piqued (I fear this far too subdued a word) my interest:

Snopes.com has listed the authenticity of this photo as “partly true” as they haven’t been able to authenticate the origins of the photo, but as I’ll explain, it’s well within the realm of believability.

These guys are known by multiple names including coconut crab due to their ability to crack coconuts with their claws to access the meat inside, robber crab due to their alleged propensity to steal shiny objects, as well as palm thief. Their range is associated with coasts of the Pacific and Indonesian Oceans.

They are considered the largest land-dwelling arthropods, apparently pushing the size limits of terrestrial organisms with exoskeletons. I did a little digging and it appears there are two possible reasons for this. The most cited reason is the oxygen content of the air.  Animals with exoskeletons have a tougher time with gas exchange through their hard shells and need to devote a fair amount of surface area to the deed. The bigger they become the harder this task becomes (See this ScienceDaily article for more on this). While I’m not sure how valid the second conjecture is in this particular case, I found the suggestion that the weight of the exoskeleton eventually becomes too much to bear for large land-bound crabs as compared to aquatic species. This is certainly true for animals like whales that start to suffer from their weight on land when stranded, I’m just not sure how much this is true for coconut crabs. They can have leg spans reaching up to 3 ft which is one reason that 1st startling picture seems possible (although I found quite a bit of arguing online about several elements of the photo that might suggest it has been photo-shopped, not the least of which includes the unlikelihood of this species to be roaming around during the day as it tends to get too hot for them).

They are definitely considered generalists and will go after a large variety of food. It seems this means mostly fruit and plants but apparently also means turtle hatchlings, rats, and sometimes dead things. I can’t relay the horror I feel at the citation in the wikipedia article indicating coconut crabs may have eaten Amelia Earhart’s body or at least dragged her bones off. It can at least be said then, that coconut crabs can hardly be called discerning creatures.

As adults, these animals have no natural predators save the locals who savor them as a delicacy as well as an aphrodisiac. This little crab fetish has actually given the crabs worldwide protected status. As perhaps a karmic payback of sorts, there have been cases of food poisonings from dining on the crabs related to their occasionally toxic diets.

So don’t say I never taught you anything…

We Could be Heroes…and Wear Spandex

(First off, does anybody know why the plural of hero is heroes and not heros?) I went to a movie last night with a friend and saw a trailer for a movie coming out called  Kick-Ass:

It reminded me of hearing about real people who were dressing up as super heroes. I found reallifesuperheroes.org, and instead of finding a lot of stealth vigilante crimefighting, found tips for activism and the general improvement of local communities. The super hero guises seem to be for purposes of instilling some fun into local action and bringing a larger-than-life feel to the role of real-life heroes. There are certainly some superhero hotties among the ranks and like you’d expect, perhaps a few folks that should have shunned the spandex. Another glossy portal for the hero-inclined is superheroes anonymous – “a collective of real life superheroes dedicated to inspiring the superhero in all people through outreach, education, and creative community service.” Apparently, they’ve inspired a documentary so we definitely all have that to look forward to!

If you’d like to keep track of our adventurers in occasionally ill-fitting costumes, scope out the World Superhero Registry.

So, I’m hooked on these do-gooders, these regular folks who’ve decided to become active in shaping the world they’re part of, but that’s not say there aren’t people out there with a touch of the mystical, who might be a little more than ordinary. I like this site, that has profiles of people with fantastic abilities on par with what we envision for our superfolk (although, a couple of these are more riddley’s believe it or not fodder, with more shock value than real intrigue) . I was most taken with Ben, a teenager who lost his eyes to cancer and is savvy at athletics and other activities due to his ability to use “echolocation”.  He makes a clicking sound and  listens for the quality of the sound when it returns, almost like a real-life variation on Daredevil. Below is part 1/5 of an intriguing documentary featuring Ben (the additional parts can be found directly on youtube):