Animalia > Arthropoda > Malacostraca > Decapoda > Coenobitidae > Birgus > Birgus latro

Birgus latro (coconut crab)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is a species of terrestrial hermit crab, also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, and is probably at the upper size limit for terrestrial animals with exoskeletons in recent times, with a weight of up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb). It can grow to up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length from leg to leg. It is found on islands across the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific Ocean as far east as the Gambier Islands mirroring the distribution of the coconut palm; it has been extirpated from most areas with a significant human population, including mainland Australia and Madagascar.
View Wikipedia Record: Birgus latro

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Birgus latro

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Aldabra Special Reserve 86487 Seychelles    

Prey / Diet

Predators

Homo sapiens (man)[2]

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Dietary assimilation and the digestive strategy of the omnivorous anomuran land crab Birgus latro (Coenobitidae); Joanne E. Wilde, Stuart M. Linton, Peter Greenaway; J Comp Physiol B (2004) 174: 299–308
2Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0