amnhnyc:

🦀Crawling your way is a critter so large that Charles Darwin once described it as growing to “a monstrous size!” Enter the world’s largest terrestrial invertebrate: the coconut crab (Birgus latro).

🥥This bulky crustacean can span up to 3 feet (1 meter) long from leg tip to leg tip and weigh up to 8 pounds (4 kilograms). A member of the hermit crab family, the coconut crab inhabits coasts off of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, where it uses its powerful claws to crack open and feast on coconuts. Just how strong is its pinching power? Scientists have compared it to a lion’s bite force!

Photo: pattfwi, CC BY-SA 2.0, flickr

#CoconutCrab #AnimalFacts #nature #dyk #crustaceans
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