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Voting ended onOct 31, 2025

By Piotr Naskrecki, CC-BY-NC

#coconut crab #hermit crab #decapod #crustacean #arthropod #id in alt text #friday poll #i like this photo #coconut crabs in places they shouldn't be #forgot alternate names:#robber crab #palm thief

lil guy commission! ty to the commissioner for giving me like, total creative freedom 🫶🏼

get your own lil guy!

#commissions #splatoon #robber crab #splatoon 3 #coconut crab #procreate #my art #digital art #original design

Final Fantasy XVI

Robber crabs can be found in the forest areas of Mysidia, available in the Rising Tide expansion.

#crabs in games #robber crab #final fantasy xvi

#2813 - Birgus latro - Coconut Crab

AKA robber crab and palm thief. Originally described as Cancer crumenatus in 1705 by Georg Eberhard Rumphius working in what is now Eastern Indonesia, but that was before Linnaeus popularised the binomial naming system. Linnaeus called it Cancer latro.

An enormous hermit crab, with a legspan of up to a meter, and weighing up to 4.1 kg (9 lb). It's range once broadly shadowed that of the coconut palm, from Zanzibar to the Pitcairns, but it is now extinct in most areas with a significant human population, and considered vulnerable elsewhere. Some efforts are being made to protect them.

Juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection like other hermit crabs, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton over their previously delicate abdomens. Coconut crabs have evolved branchiostegal lungs, which they use instead of their vestigial gills, and will drown if immersed in water for too long. They also have an acute sense of smell which they use to find fleshy fruits, nuts, seeds, fallen trees, carrion, possibly Amelia Earhart, and other organic matter opportunistically. Anything left unattended will be investigated and may be carried away. Funnily enough, coconuts are not a significant part of its diet, but they can certainly climb up the tree to look for anything easier to eat.

Nov. 1956 Man's Conquest magazine cover art by George Gross. The guy certainly had a theme. Alas the protagonist survived.

The spend most of their time in moist burrows, unless it's very humid or raining, as this helps their lungs to function. Mating occurs on dry land, but the crabs release their fertilized eggs into the sea. The larvae are planktonic for about a month, before settling to the sea floor, entering a gastropod shell and returning to land. Sexual maturity is reached after about 5 years, and they may live another 55. Or even well over a century.

Otago Museum, Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand.