Christmas Island, I dream of traveling to Christmas Island for the Christmas holiday however it never occurred to me that I would be sharing the island with over 100 million red crabs (Gecardoidea Natalis). The red crabs are a land species during most of their lives. Each year millions of these crabs migrate to the sea to lay their mate and lay their eggs. They take a spectacular journey from the forest to the sea crossing moving right through civilization. Locals have build crab tunnels under roads, crab walkways over roads and even close down roads to protect this important critter.
At the end of the incubation period, they babies are hatched and become larvae. This occurs precisely at the turn of the high tide during the last quarter of the moon... amazing. They larvae spend a month floating around in the ocean while turning into prawn like animals called magalopae. They then gather at the shore for a few days and turn into little crabs ready to leave their ocean home. The next migration occurs as the babies march inland to the forest where they disappear in the forest floor for three years. At age 4 or 5 years, they sexually mature and make their own migration back to the sea. I love this stuff!
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