Birgus latro is the well known terrestrial coconut crab. It lives in holes and under vegetation on many of the outer islands. They spawn in the water and return to land as they develop, so some of them show up on inhabited islands such as Kwajalein Island and they are common on Roi-Namur. They typically live on food such as fruits and nuts that drop to the ground from trees, but will eat other things as well. We had one living under our raised trailer on Kwajalein, and it would come out at night to eat any leftover dry cat food that we left on the patio for our outside cat. Often it would steal the entire bowl, dragging it under the trailer and making very appropriate another common name these crabs are given: robber crab. Prior to moving from that trailer, I crawled under and found about 20 missing bowls. These crabs get large with very strong claws that would certainly be capable of taking off a person's finger.
On Kwajalein or Roi, you can at night occasionally find crabs large crabs that have wandered into the street.
When young, these crabs occupy cast-off snail shells like any other hermit crab. As they get too large for any possible shells, the outer surface of the soft abdomen hardens and they drop the shell.
Created 10 August 2018
Updated 16 July 2019