Coconut Crab Youtube

A huge coconut crab creeps up on a dormant birds and slay him.

An enormous coconut crab was recorded chasing, slaying and swallowing a sea bird. Birgus latro (coconut crabs), also called big cats, are an impressive view. That makes them the biggest invertebrate - spine-less creatures - onshore. These shrimps can be found on reef fish in the Caribbean in the tropical Indic and Pazific-Ocean.

They' re known for their tree-climbing skills and their flavor for coconut, which they break open with their strong nails. From January to March 2016 Mark Laidre from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire paid a visit to the Chagos Archipelago, a secluded set of atols in the Indian Ocean. It is located in one of the world' s biggest sea reservations and has many coconut shrimps that make it easy to find and observ.

Laidre saw a coconut crab climbing onto a forest one evening and started shooting. Crab approached an ordinary sea-fowl named Red-footed Gannet, who slept in a near-bottom shelter. It would be simple for a coconut crab to break a bird's wings, says Shin-ichiro Oka of the Okinawa Churashima Foundation Research Center in Japan.

By 2016, he showed that the crab's nails pinched with a power of up to 3,300 Newton, more than any other shellfish and similar to the biting power of a large carnivore like a giant beast. The crab retreated after the first assault, followed the injured birds and broke the other wings with its nails.

"He had nowhere to go when both legs were broke and he was lying on the floor," says Laidre. It did not take long before five more coconut shrimps appeared, perhaps attracted by the excitement and smell of bloody water. "It' been quite horrible," says Laidre. Hunting such loot with enough coconut crustaceans could have a significant environmental impact.

In these small islets, coconut crab adults are by far the biggest terrestrial crayfish. Sea fowls can shun many crab islets to prevent them or their offspring from being devour. Correspondingly, Laidre's polls showed that when coconut crayfish live on an islet, bird life is less likely and so on.

When there are already many sea fowl on an islet, coconut crayfish will have a difficult time colonizing themselves because they are small and susceptible. "When you have a lot of bird there, it will be very difficult to get taller because they will feed you," says Laidre. He' s now planning to install remote-controlled cams at the crab cave inlets.

It shows what the shrimps pull back to feed and how often they chase them.