What do red crabs do on Christmas Island?

Red crabs contribute to rainforest health by selectively consuming plants, cleaning up leaf litter, turning over the soil and fertilising it with their droppings. Christmas Island's red crab migration occurs at the beginning of the wet season every year.



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Early inhabitants of Christmas Island rarely mentioned these crabs. It is possible that their current large population size was caused by the extinction of the endemic Maclear's rat, Rattus macleari in 1903, which may have limited the crab's population.

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Red crabs, thought to live as long as 20 to 30 years, are the only species of land crab where both females and males migrate to breed. In other land crab species, only the females march to the coast to deposit their eggs into the sea after mating inland. This mass migration is also tied to the lunar schedule.

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Also known as the coconut crab, the robber crab is the world's biggest land crustacean. It can weigh more than 4 kg and measure up to a metre across. Christmas Island has the world's largest and best protected population of these gentle giants, which can live to be more than 50 years old.

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Christmas Island began appearing on the charts of English and Dutch navigators from the early 1600s. But it wasn't until 1643 that Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company named the island after sighting it on Christmas Day.

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The annual migration of millions of red crabs from the rainforests of Australia's Christmas Island to the coast is underway.

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Yellow crazy ants have spread far across the indo-pacific region often using human shipping and air traffic to migrate into new areas. Image: Wetterer (2005). It is thought that they were accidently introduced to Christmas Island through shipping.

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Christmas Island had a population of 1,692 residents as of 2021, the majority living in settlements on the northern edge of the island.

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In 2016, Clement lent his voice to Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab, in the Disney animated film Moana, both in English, and the Maori dub.

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When does the red crab migration occur? The migration starts with the first rainfall of the wet season. This is usually in October or November, but can sometimes be as late as December or January. Red crabs all over the island leave their homes at the same time and start marching towards the ocean to mate and spawn.

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