robber crab

robber crab

also called  coconut crab 

      large, nocturnal land crab of the southwest Pacific and Indian oceans. It is closely related to the hermit crab and king crab. All are decapod crustaceans (order Decapoda, class Crustacea). Adults are about 1 m (about 40 inches) from head to tail and weigh about 4.5 kg (10 pounds). The full-grown adult crab ranges in colouring from light violet to brown and deep purple. Young adults are brown, with black stripes on their legs. The crab uses two large chelae, or pincers, to pound or chip open coconuts—the soft white meat of which is its principal diet. Although robber crabs can climb trees, they apparently eat only coconuts already on the ground.

      The female releases her ripe eggs in the sea, and they immediately hatch as microscopic, swimming zoeas. This first larval stage, which lives in the water, feeds on small organisms. After 20 to 30 days the zoea develops into a glaucothoe, the intermediate stage, and leaves the water to live in a seashell for three or four weeks. It then discards the shell, buries itself in moist sand, and transforms into a small adult. Most of the daylight hours are passed in burrows up to about 0.6 m (2 feet) deep, sometimes two crabs to a burrow. The crabmeat is a local delicacy.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Robber crab — Robber Rob ber, n. One who robs; in law, one who feloniously takes goods or money from the person of another by violence or by putting him in fear. [1913 Webster] Some roving robber calling to his fellows. Milton. [1913 Webster] Syn: Thief;… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • robber crab — /ˈrɒbə kræb/ (say robuh krab) noun a large anomuran crab, Birgus latro, of the Indo Pacific tropics, highly specialised to climb coconut palms for the meat of the nuts; coconut crab …  

  • robber crab — noun 1. : purse crab 2. : hermit crab …   Useful english dictionary

  • Robber — Rob ber, n. One who robs; in law, one who feloniously takes goods or money from the person of another by violence or by putting him in fear. [1913 Webster] Some roving robber calling to his fellows. Milton. [1913 Webster] Syn: Thief; depredator;… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Robber fly — Robber Rob ber, n. One who robs; in law, one who feloniously takes goods or money from the person of another by violence or by putting him in fear. [1913 Webster] Some roving robber calling to his fellows. Milton. [1913 Webster] Syn: Thief;… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Robber gull — Robber Rob ber, n. One who robs; in law, one who feloniously takes goods or money from the person of another by violence or by putting him in fear. [1913 Webster] Some roving robber calling to his fellows. Milton. [1913 Webster] Syn: Thief;… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • crab — crab1 crablike, adj. /krab/, n., v., crabbed, crabbing. n. 1. any decapod crustacean of the suborder Brachyura, having the eyes on short stalks and a short, broad, more or less flattened body, the abdomen being small and folded under the thorax.… …   Universalium

  • Coconut crab — Coconut crab …   Wikipedia

  • hermit crab — any of numerous crabs, esp. of the genera Pagurus and Eupagurus, that protect their soft uncovered abdomen by occupying the castoff shell of a univalve mollusk. [1725 35] * * * Any crab (families Paguridae and Coenobitidae) that uses empty shells …   Universalium

  • purse crab — I. noun : a large anomuran land crab (Birgus latro) that is widely distributed about islands of the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans where it burrows in the soil and feeds on coconuts and is related to the hermit crabs but distinguished by its… …   Useful english dictionary

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