Strange and endangered wildlife
WebEcoist's list of "20 Strange and Exotic Endangered Species" is a sad marvel of incredibly odd creatures that your kids might never get a chance to see.
20 (More) Strange and Exotic Endangered Species (via Neatorama)
This is not shopped. This is not a hoax. That is a giant crab on a garbage can. They’re native to Guam and other Pacific islands. Coconut crabs aren’t endangered, per se, but due to tropical habitat destruction they are at risk. In WWII, American soldiers stationed in the Pacific theater wrote home with tales about entire atolls being covered in the armor-plated giants. These crabs can crack a coconut in one swipe; but they’re generally too slow to be very dangerous to humans. Children pass lazy afternoons by picking the crabs off tree trunks and watching them crash to the ground; it’s reportedly great fun. And kind of messed up.
(Image: Giant coconut crab by Jason Kottke)
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This picture has officially scared the living hell out of me! I can't believe these things exist and I'm still walking around without full body armor!!!
That is an awesome article. I agree though, that crab is creepy...
Paging Doctor Freeman...
The picture of the crab on a tree looks like a mirelurk hunter. It's going to kill you in the Northern Wastes.
I'm sure this crab is massive, but I think the trash can is actually pretty small. I've seen coconut crabs and I've never seen them larger than maybe 18-20 inches. Still huge, but not as big as it appears in the pic above.
Au contraire - although the animals themselves are truly amazing, I was less than happy with the article itself. There are so many glaring errors... It sounds as if they've taken a quick look at Wikipaedia and written the article three days later.
yes, they are ugly, but they can't be beat for grooming purposes.
God I hope that crab is endangered.
Happy crab Happy man
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/thezarray/Happy_crab.jpg
I demand something cute and not terrifying.
Not sure about the Giant Palouse Earthworm being the largest earthworm. New Zealand has a species of earthworm that can be up to 1.4 m long some 4 times longer.
http://www.terranature.org/weta.htm#earthworms
HOLY CRAP! Did you see the size of that crab??? "Native to Guam and other Pacific islands"...like the Island of Dr. Moreau, perhaps?
Native to South Pacific Islands? Since when?
Any chance these crabs were first spotted some time after the big nuke tests of the 40s and 50s?
Methinks some additional tests are in order...
if it makes you feel any better, the trash can is about half the size you think it is.
these large crabs are about 60-80 years old, would be truly a shame to eat something older than yourself!
speak for yourself
I remember when I first saw this, that I was fascinated that its lowest body segment (what is that, the abdomen?) looks exacty like a hamburger on a sesame seed bun.
#3: made me think of this:
http://cache.kotaku.com/gaming/images/dogstreet.jpg
and all related pics.
Giant enemy crab!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJElsNaC6yQ
Don't know about not eating anything older than yourself. Drinking something older than I am always worked fine with me, though.
#6 Uncamarty:
Agree completely. Their ignorance regarding amphibians is stunning.
I've got to say my first thought was not awe or fear, but wonder at how they would taste.
Take that, macrofauna and limited threshold genetic pools!
In all seriousness, is it really humanity's obligation to prevent all species from extinction? Sure I can understand the guilt weighted duty if it's the result of direct man made destruction, but surely the cause of all these species scarcity is not the result of human intervention. In some cases, it is as if people keep these creatures around for the sheer novelty-- just catalog them and part company. Extinction isn't an exception.
It's a Giant Enemy Crab!
Flip it over and attack it's weak spot for massive damage.
Although I am sad to hear that the article is perpetuating amphibian ignorance, pictures of wacky critters are always awesome. Imagine all of the wacky critters we've already killed off without even realizing it, in all our brilliance. Ugh.
#21 Such arrogance, this assumption that only vertebrates matter. Keep them around for the novelty? How do you make it through the day without your head exploding from that self importance?
And we sure as shit are the cause of massive numbers of extinctions. We are the catalyst for an extinction event that is happening right now.
So we do what, keep the pretty things, the cute things, the things we eat alive? You think that's enough, that will do it?
When a species goes extinct, it never does so alone. Life is interconnected in ways we are only beginning to understand. If there are organisms in a system that you know are going extinct, be assured that there are scores of species in that same environment that will follow. It's not the owl, it's the forest stupid. And, at the same time, it is the spotted owl, and all the creatures who live on or near the spotted owl, whose populations are kept in check by the spotted owl, whose environmental fitness is the owl. The forest is the owl, is the spider, is the giant orthopteran. You don't get to pick and chose which ones, in your frightful ignorance, you get to keep. When you do, it is not a forest, it is a sad little zoo with those "cute" animals hanging by a thread, with only the weed species, like ourselves, surviving.
In the case of each organism on this list we really don't know if the loss of any of these things will have an impact on our lives. As if our sorry-ass survival were the only thing that mattered. Not to mention that your grandchildren and great grandchildren might be a little pissed off. Like thanks, granddad, thanks for the massive extinction. But hey, at least you got to go shopping at Shaper Image and watch cable television. Yeah, that was so worth it for us future generations.
As E.O. Wilson said, if insects went extinct, life on land as we know it would cease to exist in about two years. If humans went, life would go on just as it has.
We are a blip, a disease. Or so it seems when our ability to manipulate our environment allows our population to swell to the point that we are using up the resources that keep us alive, while at the same time we refuse to use those very brains to understand that very environment.
"In all seriousness", humanity doesn't recognize any obligations except to itself, which is the way of any creature. But we're the ones with the big brains, we're the ones who should be paying attention. We're too self involved. We're stoooopid.
Just catalog them and part company? We aren't even doing that. Even in wealthy first world countries with plenty of resources, we aren't doing it. Is there one area, one state, one city that has an accurate census of what insects are living there? Not hardly. No one is cataloging them, because of attitudes just like yours. And so countless organisms go extinct right under your feet, and you don't even know.
The point is not that the animals on this list are strange, so they should be preserved. The point is the animals on this list are showy enough that some people actually notice them, notice that they are gone. Most of the things we destroy, we squash them under our feet and we don't even deign to notice.
when i was in micronesia i was told they have a delicious coconut flavoring when eaten due to the fact that they only eat coconut. didn't try for myself, i dont eat things with eyeballs.
Good Lord! I won't sleep tonight!
I got no problem eating lobsters older then I am (and I'm in my fifties, so imagine how big those lobsters must be), so I would have no problem eating these overgrown hermit crabs. I've had this picture as the wall paper on a PC here at work for a few months, but when I went looking for coconut crab photos, I could find nothing about whether or not the people in the area eat them. I can't comprehend how much butter I'd have to melt to eat this beauty.
Mmmmm, I bet you could make a lot of crab stuffing to fill a stuffed lobster with!
-abs almost always goes to the "how can I eat this thing" response when tasty looking wildlife is put up, but aside from the initial "Hey, that looks yummy" response he does have to admit that these crabs kind of creep him out, in fact he's kind of in favor of eating them into extinction, even if someone else gets to eat the last one.
I want to eat it. Steamed, with minced garlic.
In melted butter, infused with pulverized artichoke hearts and dill.
Watching a sunset, listening to Bach.
With champagne.
On a yacht.
i think if they weren't endangered, they wouldn't be strange
Clayton, from the Wiki:
So they probably did find it on a smaller can than you'd expect, but it's still freakin' huge.
Children pass lazy afternoons by picking the crabs off tree trunks and watching them crash to the ground; it’s reportedly great fun. And kind of messed up.
Let's eat them kids with butter...
According to a special I saw on discovery once crabs, spiders, and other exoskeleton creatures used to roam the planet and were as big as elephants. So just be thankful they aren't bigger?
The Mexican walking fish and the glass frog are possibly the two coolest animals on that list, while the Kagu has the best hairstylist.
Coconut crabs! I was three when my family lived in Guam, but I remember these guys. If you found one in your front yard, you could call base command and some guys would remove all of the coconut trees, I guess because they were scary looking.
I gotta eat that. Get me a sledgehammer and an icepick, it's slow food time!
@ #24 Pipenta
I agree with you on most of your points, and although my own crude phrasing might have sparked such vehemence, let me assure you that we are on the same page when it comes to humanity's responsibility to fixing the problems that they themselves cause.
However, I must give my condolences to you after to whichever professor or whatever series of books, articles and programs that has withered your view on humanity and existence in general so thoroughly.
"We are a blip, a disease." Argh! Sure, you qualify your statement a few lines later, but still-- you're contradicting yourself!
Humanity, though brief in vast expanse that life has existed previously and perished on Earth, is perhaps the only species capable of actually admiring it. For you to damn humanity while using the advanced capacities to form the thought is baffling. Humankind are not be the highest possible achievement of nature among 35 million species, but we are the only ones keeping count!
"As if our sorry-ass survival were the only thing that mattered." So much self hatred! C'mon you don't mean that right? In any demanding scenario of life and death, I'd always choose the option that spares a human life, over the animal every time. Human beings will always have more value over non-rational, non-volitional conscious life forms. Besides, if you want to save species from natural extinction, humanity is explicitly needed. We may be the lousy tenets of the Earth, but we're the only ones that can fix it.
"humanity doesn't recognize any obligations except to itself, which is the way of any creature. But we're the ones with the big brains, we're the ones who should be paying attention. We're too self involved. We're stoooopid."
A little sarcastic, but you're right. We don't know enough-- yet. If humanity is supposed to pick up the mantle of preservers and interventionists, we need to become more powerful and more knowledgeable.
There have been five major extinction episodes on Earth: the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic and Cretaceous and yet, most life on Earth has left no record at all. Less than one out of 10,000 species has made it to the fossil record. Based on the current estimate of 30 billion species since the formation of the planet, Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin suggest the number of known fossilized species is closer to one in 120,000. Fossils represent only the tiniest sample of life on Earth.
That said, it would be foolish to believe that our current set of life forms are those that should be preserved (except humans of course). I don't think my grandchildren will begrudge the fact that there won't be any giant salamanders left-- seeing how the only sustainable environment left to them are artificial isolation and captivity.
"Is there one area, one state, one city that has an accurate census of what insects are living there? Not hardly. No one is cataloging them, because of attitudes just like yours."
Yeah, not enough is being done, but you do realize what an impossible task that would be? And would those many hours spent yield the same worth in results as other possible fields? Humanity is severely outnumbered by insects, plants and especially by microbes. Bacteria are the most enduring inhabitants of Earth. They survived for billions of years without us, but humans cannot survive one day without them. Etc. Etc.-- the point being, it is not the studies of life that should take precedence, yet the scientific inquiry that attempts to make sense of them. Science needs to be desperately popularized.
But yeah... I otherwise concur.
I don't know, ever since that night on the beach on Dr.No's island...
I saw a few in person when I was living in Vanuatu as a kid. Scary as all HELL to me the first time, but the local kids being not at all afraid of them calmed my nerves and eventually I accepted that they're pretty cute (although that picture is a particularly non-cute looking one).
I grew to like them. Wouldn't see them often but sometimes I'd see one slowly shuffling along the grass looking very out of place. They were timid and would freeze in place if you got close.
How do you make it through the day without your head exploding from that self importance?
Maybe it already did and that's the problem.
In the photo this crab is displaying fairly developed intelligence. It's using its friggin claw to open a container for chrissakes. How long before they pick up firearms and start using laptops?
It also shows an awareness of object permanence - smarter than some human children. I guess if they live to be 70 then they have time to figure these things out.
So, theoretically, all it takes is for a single crab to taste human flesh, and then they'll be picking the locks on our doors in the middle of the night.
I want the Department of Homeland Security to get involved.
I have seen these things in the South Pacific on various islands, they breed like friggin rats and can be found by the hundreds.
As a member of the People who Eat Tasty Animals, and a proud holder of canine teeth (blame "evolution"), they are tasty as hell and usually served with a spicy brown sauce, not butter. Best served with a nice hoppy beer.
Also fantastic in omeletes.
Don't knock it till you try it, there are parts of the world that think fried ground fowl embryos and sliced, fried porcine belly is sick.
"...among 35 million species [...] we are the only ones keeping count!"
That's an awesome responsibility (If I may give the adjective its original value).
Are we the eyes and ears of Earth? Solar system? Galaxy?
Maybe the question isn't What are we ... but Who are we?
That's corrugated siding on the building in the picture, so the garbage can can't be all that small.
If you're creeped out by coconut crabs, this is not a unicorn chaser. Neither is this. Read the caption. You know they travel in packs and lurk in camouflage, right? Personally, I'd be wondering whether they can jump. Here's one crouching above a doorway.
Versh @22: No, we don't have to preserve all species. It's just a lot smarter than not doing so.
You do know that at one point along the line, our ancestors were reduced to one very small population? I'm not talking lemurs; I mean us.
Cochituate, Google says the coconut crab can be cooked and eaten, and even turns the right color. It's good to know that if the crustaceans ever try to take over, New Englanders will be there to stop them, armed with backpack-mounted tanks of garlic butter.
I suspect that the disappearance of the trilobytes is proof that time travel was invented by New Englanders ... or possibly someone from Baltimore.
I spent some time on the Kwajalein Atoll and one employee had one of these mounted on a plaque in his office on neighboring Meck Island. Meck has a missile launch pad on it. The crab was apparently walking across the flame duct when a missile lit off, dug his claws into the concrete and held on for dear (abbreviated) life.
When the found him, he was cooked through and through, so in respect they mounted him. I believe he was known as "Flame Duct Charlie".
As a short timer, I was told to carry a golf club with me if I ever walked out on the roads. I don't know if the things were aggressive or whether the long timers were just messing with me.
I'm guessing the dust bin is no more than 70 cm high, based on wire bail handles, sidewalk crack line, foilage, siding corrugation and psychic hunch.
Anybody?
Jim,
They were definitely screwing with you. Here is a video that shows the average speed of the buggers. They can run backwards a little faster when frightened, but you could walk right up to one and pick it up. Of course, you would want to avoid the claws. This video shows a good average size of the ones I have seen, so the one in the picture above has got to be pretty old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihLQN9AfXa4
I thought finding my outside garbage can covered in spiders was bad enough.
Apperentally it can be much much worse if I lived in Guam or the other Pacific islands. If I ever saw a crab like that climbing all over my garbage can, I'd never leave my house again.
Then again, if I did live at those islands since birth, I'd probably wouldn't mind their presence that much.
Comment #8 sounds a lot like what my sister would say if she saw this picture. I laughed for a good five minutes.
no, no, no, no, no, no, no.....
There is one single organism that anyone should care about: Homo sapiens. That's it.
That doesn't mean that we let everything else die, because we require other organisms to live.
This doesn't appear to be one of them.
(Clearly a mirelurk, BTW)
Apparently these things taste a little like lobster with a hint of a coconut. Yum!
Somehow, my potato bug infestation doesn't seem so bad now.
#50, Kyle Armbruster:
Well, glad we cleared that one up.
After all, the removal of an organism contributing up to 1.5 tonnes of biomass per hectare couldn't possibly have any negative effect on the local environment (or its suitability for human habitation), could it?
I'm sure the IUCN will soon be asking your opinion on which of the other 40,000 species on the Red List we should allow to become extinct.
Beanolini, I think there's a good chance that was intended as humor.
Coconut Crabs are harmless, like seriously
but they are extremely delicious >.-
add coconut milk to it and it'll be a local dish (:
and yes they are extremely slow, so it's an easy kill.
they have alot of small regular sized ones
but the gigantic ones are indeed a rare find
it's like 1 in 20 chance to see one.