The Whole Wide World

This post is dedicated to the crabs of Palmyra Atoll…and my ice friend, Ben Goldberg, who LOVES crabs. They are everywhere here, crabs, not Bens. Fiddlers, Hermits, Coconut; all sorts and all sizes and they have the right of way on station. People fall off of their bikes to avoid them.

I am not exaggerating when I say crabs everywhere and they are all so entertaining. The other day one crossed in front of me holding a stick in his pincher and he looked just like a little pirate. Then I noticed he had a large leaf in his other pincher-collecting all the treasures. As I type this, I am watching a crab figure out how to get a massive Booby feather into his burrow. 

With crabs everywhere, we have to be very mindful of where we step. This means as soon as the sun goes down you have to walk with either a headlamp or flashlight. The red light doesn’t cut it either, as it isn’t easy to distinguish between a rock and a crab with the red light.

Here are a few first month crab highlights

Crab equivalent of a bar crawl

It was my second Saturday night on station and I was walking home from the ‘Yacht Club’ which is basically our communal living room. It was a full moon and the crabs were out in full force feasting on the dropped fruit from the Pandanis trees. I couldn’t take two steps without coming across a crab eating, or fighting another crab for fruit. They were everywhere. It was so funny it reminded me of my clubbing days and all the young’uns eating kebabs in the streets in the wee hours of the morning. Only this was Palymra midnight (9PM) and it was crabs eating fruit, but all looking rather drunksies. 

I was having a good giggle at the comparison in my head when I came across a coconut crab (more on coconut carbs below) who at first glance appeared to be crossing paths with a much smaller hermit crab. After watching them interact for a few seconds, I realized they were fighting. Well, fighting might be a stretch because the poor little hermit had no chance against the coconut crab ten times his size. Chris, the preserve manger, walked up as I realized what was happening and informed me that they are cannibals. I don’t know why I was so surprised to hear this, as I’d heard the theory shortly before I arrived on the atoll that Amelia Earhart’s body was never found because the coconut crabs ate it. Eek. 

coconut crabs

The coconut crabs are indeed the wildest. They are also known as robber crabs and they are the largest terrestrial arthropods in the world. Some of them are HUGE and like 60 years old. They can weigh up to nine pounds and reach three feet wide. Big ‘uns I tell you.

On that note, it should be noted that we do NOT eat crabs here. Honestly, the only seafood I’ve had since I’ve been here is tuna salad. The tuna was from a can. US Fish and Wildlife (USF&W) have a manager (the lovely Paige) onsite and we do not harm or eat any wildlife here. 

crab charlie

The first group of researchers left this week after a months stay with us. Among them was ‘Crab Charlie’, a researcher who has been coming to the atoll for a handful of seasons to conduct crab research. I was lucky enough to jump on his permit and accompany him on a trip to some of the islands that are strictly USF&W, where his research projects are set up. His project is designed to understand land crabs’ role in atoll nutrient connectivity and resilience. 

My best attempt to summarize Crab Charlie’s work:

Around the islands, he built small exclosures that are buried deep into the sand/soil to prevent the crabs from entering. He monitors the CO2 levels in the exclosures and also outside of the exclosures. I got to help run the CO2 reading which entails a handy dandy (expensive) CO2 reader that screws into PVC pipe he has placed in the soil at these locations. 

The data he collects will inform future conservation efforts through better detailing the impacts of crab loss in degraded habitats, the value of healthy crab populations to atoll nutrient movement, and the recovery of endangered crab populations after management interventions. The readings we took concluded that CO2 levels were indeed higher in the exclosures, which means the crabs are doing good things for the environment. 

Hermie gets a new home

I went on a snorkel trip to Barren, one of the outer lying islands on the atoll. The only thing we are allowed to bring back to Cooper (where the station is) are empty shells for the hermits. With so many hermits taken up residence on Cooper, there is a shortage of shells for them and they will literally fight each other and take a shell off of another hermits back! So on the snorkel trip, I grabbed a few good looking shells and when I got back to Cooper I placed them in a line near the back steps of the galley. 

By the time I went to shower and came back there was already a hermit sniffing out the new shells. I took a seat on the step and spent the next twenty minutes watching lil hermie sniff the heck out of the shells. After a long sniffing session, he spent ages lining one of the up juuussst right and then as quick as a jiffy, he popped out of his shell and backed into his new home. After ages and ages of sussing things out, the actual house swap was so fast. That’s because without his shell he is super exposed and that’s scary for him! 

It was such an awesome twenty minutes. The epitome of zen. 

It’s not hard to understand why my friend Ben loves the crabs so much. 

More soon & crab regards,

Annemarie xoxo