this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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The Biggest Crabs In the World May Have Eaten Amelia Earhart (www.atlasobscura.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Can you imagine a crab the size of a cat scuttling around your backyard, climbing up trees, and quietly sneaking away with your shiniest pots and silverware? No? Then perhaps you’ve never had the privilege of meeting a coconut crab.

These crabs are curious and unfussy. In addition to coconut flesh, fallen fruit, nuts, and seeds, they’ll eat the remains of dead rats, seabirds, and even their own kind. This has led to speculation that these giants may be partly responsible for the disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, who perished in the remote Pacific. Some researchers believe that her remains were eaten by coconut crabs, who then dragged away the bones.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 months ago (3 children)

How the hell did they down the plane? Or know she was coming?

Too many questions.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago (3 children)

How the hell did they down the plane?

Crab to air missile. Standard.

Or know she was coming?

Craydar

Too many questions.

Are you shore? Don't clam up, I shrimplore you: ask away and I shell try to answer them all.

[–] MintyFresh 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This all seems awfully fishy

[–] skeezix 6 points 6 months ago

Your mom pussy so big she has coconut crabs.

[–] TheDoozer 2 points 6 months ago

It turtley is. For shark.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

I didn’t realise they could afford those missiles as they were feeling the pinch.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Carcinisation applies to technology, too.

[–] ChicoSuave 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Coconut crabs are heavy. Heaviest crab on earth. It also climbs trees, the most common is the coconut tree for which it is named. Those claws open coconuts like soft butter, which is specifically why they are called coconut crabs. So, with those details, here's how a coconut crab hurt aviation history:

A colony of crabs climbs a coconut tree. The weight of so many crabs that high in a tree causes the tree to lean, allowing more crabs to climb. Crab critical mass is reached and the tree, bent over like an arch, starts to lose crabs. Being crabs, they drag each other down as a crabalanche clears the palm of all but a lone coconut crab. The tree snaps back upright and hurls the lonely crab into the sky.

Coconut crabs are unable to swim, so it had little choice but to struggle and grab at anything - like a low flying aircraft. Scared, lost, and cold, the crab frantically grabs at anything it can reach, but her aircraft is cloth covered wood spars. Frantic, clumsy claws punch holes in cloth and splinter wood. Amelia has no control as the plane tumbles to earth, splattering across the deserted islands below. She never stood a chance against the crabs.

We got the crabs in the end though. When the South Pacific was chosen wasn't the remoteness of the islands that gave us the perfect target to test nukes during the 50s; it was revenge.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Seems plausible but I'd want to see the math, the monster (crab) math.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Perhaps one sneaked on the plane...

edit: Crabs on a Plane?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Yeah, may be two of them dressed up in a trench coat.

[–] jordanlund 3 points 6 months ago

Amelia was an inside job! Wake up sheeple!