An extremely unexpected scene presents itself on the Australian Christmas islands on Tuesday, November 23rd as millions of red crabs take over the streets. It left the community baffled while leaving others freaked out.
According to Parks Australia, it was the time of the year where crabs were migrating back to sea to breed. Some fascinated individuals even lay down to be covered by these snappy sea creatures that are also protected under Australian law.
The process of these creatures breeding is known to be a very complicated one. Eggs are laid in the water and picked up by their mothers when hatched to get returned to shore. During this time back onshore, there is a probability that the water swoops them back in causing some to drown as they are too premature to swim. If they do, however, fortunately, survive they track back into the forests. It’s important to note that female crabs can produce up to 100,000 eggs so a great number of them are fortunate enough to survive.
The Christmas Island national park natural resource manager Brendan Tiernan described the event as epic. He also stated that the island is also known as the red crab island and these smart creatures always time their move to the sea from the forest which is always about the first rainfall in October/November synced with the last quarter of the moon.
A local and invasive species program coordinator at the Christmas Island National park, Tanya Detto had this to say.
“I’m up on the second story of a three-storey building. They’ll pretty commonly climb up into my house.They sometimes fall off the roof, so they get up to the top and they can’t find their way down.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/red-crab-migration-christmas-island-1.6259254
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