Millions of red crabs crawled across Christmas Island on Tuesday, part of their annual migration to the ocean on the island off the western coast Australia.
“This year’s migration has been truly epic,” said natural resource manager Brendan Tiernan of Christmas Island National Park.
“The roads are full of boiling red crabs. It causes traffic jams on this small island and people have to get off carand rake them out of the way. “
The ecological phenomenon of crabs migrating to sea to lay eggs occurs elsewhere in the world on such a scale, Tiernan said.
“We sometimes call it red crab island; the community on the island acknowledges how important red crabs are to our ecosystems and our economy, to tourism,” he said.
After mating, the male crabs will return to the forest while the females stay in the burrow for about two weeks to lay eggs. Each female can produce up to 100,000 eggs, which they deposit into the ocean.
“Some people freak out when they see millions of arthropods crawling around them, while others just get lost – basically do a little ‘red crab angel’ move, they’ll be lying there. on the ground and let yourself be covered. red crabs,” said Tiernan.
The Christmas Island red crab is the island’s only species and is protected by Australian law.
