CHRISTMAS ISLAND, AUSTRALIA, SHUTS DOWN WITH BAD CASE OF SEASONAL CRABS
Ok, ok. I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, and here we are talking about Christmas already. I totally feel you. I’m old enough that I literally shudder walking into stores this time of year when I see all the Christmas decorations on sale. Like, already. And we won’t even go into the music. But this isn’t really about Christmas, the season, per se. It’s about Christmas Island. If your geography is a bit rusty or you’re just an American, Christmas Island is a part of Australia. And it literally has a really, really bad case of the crabs. So much so, that local Christmas officials have instituted wide road closures for the seasonal exodus.
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RED CRABS SEASONAL BREEDING SCHEDULE PUTS MILLIONS OF HORNY CRUSTACEANS ON THE ROAD
Ok, so maybe not exodus. That’s a bit too biblical. But we are talking about millions upon millions of red crabs that are all leaving the forests together to get to the Indian Ocean to get it on. Yes, that’s right, this is an annual mating season road closure on a scale to make the most hardy State Trooper blush. Every year, the mating season for the red crabs begins with the first major rainfall. That alone serves as a species wide foreplay concluded, let’s get it on in the (not) hot tub. The picture above is a literal, visual explanation of the scale we’re talking about here!
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RED CRABS HAVE AN EXACT SCHEDULE FOR YEARLY ORGY, CHRISTMAS ISLAND CAN ONLY WATCH
Male red crabs lead the way, starting the horny migration en-masse. The ladies hear the crustacean racket and join in, swelling the, um, numbers as they all go along. But besides the first rain, these red crabs are tuned into an insanely precise time along with the lunar date. They spawn every single year just before dawn on a receding high-tide on the last quarter of the moon. That sounds a little formulaic, but Nature makes that the height of the Christmas Island’s red crab romantic life. But the timing has to be exact for these crabs, so they travel only as fast as they have to, making sure to arrive at that special, species-wide orgasmic moment.
