Coconut Crab

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Subphylum: Crustacea

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Decapoda

Suborder: Pleocyemata

Infraorder: Anomura

Family: Coenobitidae

Genus: Birgus

Species: Birgus latro

Descendant: hermit crabs

Named by: Carl Linnaeus

Year Published: 1767

Size: weight up to 4.1 kg (9 lb); as wide as 1 m (3 ft 3 in)

Lifespan: 60 years

Activity: Cathemeral 🌅🌃

Thermoregulate: Ectotherm

Type(s): 

• Crustaceans (Hermit Crabs)

Title(s): 

• Rotational Joggler

• Giant Thunder Crab

Other Name(s)/Alias(es): 

• Robber crab

• Palm thief

Temporal Range: Miocene-Holocene

Pantheon: 

• Terran/Gaian 🇺🇳

Alignment: Neutral

Threat Level: ★★★★★

Diet: Omnivorous 🥩🌿

Elements: Rock 🪨

Inflicts: Poison 🤢

Weaknesses: Water 🌊, Rock 🪨, Leaf 🌿, Ice ❄️, Metal 🔩, Blastblight 💣

Casualties: 

• PAPRIN

  • Amelia Earhart (January 5, 1939)

• TROQA

  • ugh

Based On: 

• Itself

Conservation Status: Vulnerable (VU) – IUCN Red List

The coconut crab has been known to western scientists since the voyages of Francis Drake around 1580 and William Dampier around 1688. Based on an account by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1705), who had called the animal "Cancer crumenatus", Carl Linnaeus (1767) named the species Cancer latro, from the Latin latro, meaning "robber". The genus Birgus was erected in 1816 by William Elford Leach, containing only Linnaeus' Cancer latro, which was thus renamed Birgus latro.

Prior to being eaten by the sea mangoes that got colors of the coconut crab, the sea mango, or baraibai in Tagalog or Filipino, or bintaro in Malay and Bahasa Indonesia, the actual skin color of the coconut crab is primarily brown and free of toxins. When the sea mango or other toxic plants that are eaten by coconut crab used to ward off predators including crocodiles, sea snakes and kraits, sharks, pythons, dogs, gibbons, and people coated the coconut crab with poison, it turned into blue to purple stains.

The coconut crab is the only species of the genus Birgus, and is related to the other terrestrial hermit crabs of the genus Coenobita. It shows a number of adaptations to life on land. Juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection like other hermit crabs, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton on their abdomens and stop carrying a shell. Coconut crabs have organs known as branchiostegal lungs, which they use for breathing instead of their vestigial gills. After the juvenile stage, they will drown if immersed in water for too long. They have an acute sense of smell which they use to find potential food sources, and which has developed convergently with that of insects.

2025 Changes

• The primary cause of the 2025 redesign of the coconut crab is its poor design. I made the decision to redo the illustration in order to depict the genuine physical appearance of this species as well as its humorous tales, which are fictional.

The coconut crabs have some of the most powerful pincers in the animal kingdom. They can pinch with a force of up to 90 times their body weight. They can turn poisonous if they consume certain foods, and their strong pincers can hurt. The meat is often described as a rich, sweet, and nutty flavor, with notes of coconut and butter, due to their diet of coconuts.

What makes them even more special than just their sheer size is how intelligent they are. Once they've found a coconut they will take it down to the ground to strip the husk off. They then carry the coconut back up to the highest point of the tree and throw it to the ground cracking it open.

Because poisonous plants or animals can build up in the tissues of coconut crabs, ingesting them has been linked to food illness in some cases. Although this species is an example of aposematic behavior, coconut crabs are not aposematic because they do not have the distinctive vivid colors or pronounced patterns that usually alert potential predators to danger or poison. For example, because the sea mango (Cerbera manghas) contains cardiac cardenolides, eating it may make the coconut crab poisonous.

Their main defenses are their powerful, crushing claws, which can exert immense force, and their ability to retreat into their hermit shells or develop a hard, armored exoskeleton as they age.

• ugh

The theory posits that Amelia Earhart may have died on the island, and the coconut crabs consumed her body and dispersed her bones, only way to that the coconut crab is the apex predator. They are the largest terrestrial arthropod, with powerful claws capable of breaking open coconuts and prey.

Because they are not hostile by nature and prefer to avoid humans, coconut crabs cannot kill a human by pinching, but they can cause a serious, excruciating injury with their strong pincers. Indirectly, because the crab may have acquired lethal poisons in its body, eating one that has eaten some toxic coastal plants (sea mango) can be lethal.

Although they are not innocuous, attacks by coconut crabs are uncommon since they are typically terrified of people. Coconut crabs are generally afraid of humans and prefer to keep their distance.

According to a well-known internet meme—or perhaps a true story—Amelia Earhart crashed on Nikumaroro, and the island's coconut crabs quickly devoured her bones. Historians, however, usually reject this notion because there is no proof that Earhart's plane was discovered on or close to Nikumaroro.

The coconut crabs found elsewhere in Indo-Pacific regions worldwide, some are extirpated due to overhunting, and it often found in small numbers around small or large islands.

• Movement Pattern: Random

• Individual Type: Solo

• Population Trend: Decreasing

• Population: ???

• Locomotion: Amphibious

• Habitat: Taiga; Montane Grasslands and Shrublands; Temperate Coniferous Forests; Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests; Temperate Deciduous Forests; Temperate Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands; Subtropical Coniferous Forests; Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests; Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests; Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands; Salt Flats; Stone Forest; Tropical Coniferous Forests; Tropical Moist Broadleaf Forests; Tropical Dry Broadleaf Forests; Tropical Grasslands, Savannas and Shrublands; Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub; Mushroom Forests; Mushroom Fields; Deserts and Xeric Shrublands; Badlands; Fallow Airbase; Flooded Grasslands and Savannas; Swamp; Bayous/Billabongs; Riparian; Wetland; Mangrove Forest; Cold Bamboo Forests; Tropical Bamboo Forests; Air-breathing Coral Reefs; Graveyard Vale; Warm River; Cold River; Lukewarm River; Subterranean River; Warm Pond; Cold Pond; Warm Lake; Cold Lake; Salt Lake; Aquifer; Warm Littoral; Cold Littoral; Warm Intertidal; Cold Intertidal; Kelp Forest; Coral Reef; Barrier Reef; Neritic Zone (Warm); Neritic Zone (Cold); Pelagic Zone (Warm); Pelagic Zone (Cold); Karst Cave; Karst Spring; Volcano; Lava Trench; Basalt Delta; Warm Ghost Town; Cold Ghost Town; Ruined Skyscraper.

• Earth: 

  • Extant (Native Species): American Samoa (Swains Is.); British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago); Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Cook Islands (Cook Is., Manihiki Is.); Fiji; French Polynesia (Tuamotu); Guam; Indonesia (Jawa; Kalimantan; Papua); Japan/Nihon; Kiribati; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; Mozambique; Nauru; New Caledonia; Niue; Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Philippines (Batanes; Bicol; Cebu; Palawan; Siquijor); Pitcairn; Samoa; Seychelles (Aldabra); Taiwan; Tanzania, United Republic of; Tonga; Tuvalu; United States Minor Outlying Islands (US Line Is.); Vanuatu

  • Possibly Extant (Resident): Comoros; India (Andaman Islands; Nicobar Islands); Solomon Islands

  • Possibly Extinct: India

  • Extinct: Australia; Chile (Easter Island); French Polynesia (Marquesas); Madagascar; Mauritius (Rodrigues); Réunion; Tokelau

• Reinachos: 

  • Extant & Introduced (Resident): ugh

• Sawintir: ???

ugh

ugh

2025 Renders

“ I was being chased by a giant crab. [Audience laughs] That's not funny. ”

– Dane Cook

• crab

• Balinese: Kepiting kelapa

• Cebuano: Fatus, tatus

• Chamoru: Ayuyu

• čeština: krab palmový

• Dansk: Palmetyv

• Deutsch: Palmendieb

• English: Coconut crab, robber crab

• Français: Crabe de cocotier

• Hiligaynon: Umang

• Magyar: Pálmatolvaj

• Indonesian: Ketam kenari

• Italiano: Ladro di cocchi

• Ivatan: Tatus

• Nihongo: ヤシガニ

• Korean: 야자게

• Ebon: Chaninway

• Malayalam: പനഞണ്ട്, തെങ്ങുഞണ്ട്

• Malay: Ketam kelapa

• Navajo: Atʼaʼ yiltʼąąʼí yąąh dah sidáhígíí

• Nederlands: Kokoskrab

• Palauan: Ketat

• Polski: Krab palmowy

• Português: Caranguejo-dos-coqueiros

• Kūki'Āirani: Kaveu

• Russian: Пальмовый вор

• Gagana Samoa: Ūū

• Tagalog: Alimangong lupa, tatus

• Tamil: தென்னைமர நண்டு

• Thai: ปูมะพร้าว

• Mandarin: 椰子蟹

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab

• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q206070

• https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Birgus_latro

• https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Birgus_latro

• https://bench.boldsystems.org/index.php/TaxBrowser_TaxonPage?taxid=276725

• https://www.gbif.org/species/4311512

• https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/51727-Birgus-latro

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2811/126813586

• https://tree.opentreeoflife.org/taxonomy/browse?id=644678

• https://paleobiodb.org/classic/basicTaxonInfo?taxon_no=219624

• https://www.sealifebase.ca/summary/105639

• https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=208668

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Coconut-Crab-872583346

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Coconut-Crab-2025-1151493886