The red carpet has been rolled out for millions of red crabs as they make their annual sprint to shore on the Australian island of Christmas Island. Every year, the first good rain of the season causes millions of adult crabs to leave their nests in the island’s interior forest and migrate to the coast to mate.
APB
Source:
The Guardian
Christmas Island National Park workers have spent months preparing for the mass migration, deploying miles of temporary roadblocks to ensure millions of migrating crabs are safely guided to the island’s shores.
The red crab is the most important animal species on the island, which is why the entire population is committed to making this “fascinating phenomenon” possible. Christmas Island is located 1,500 kilometers from the Australian mainland and 350 kilometers south of the Indonesian island of Java.
“Over many years we have also tackled the red crab’s biggest threat, the invasive yellow ant,” explains park manager Derek Ball.
“By reducing their numbers, the red crab population is higher than we have seen in decades and that is an excellent result, not just for the red crabs, but for the entire island ecosystem,” Ball said.
Yellow ants were first discovered on the island in 1920, but it wasn’t until they formed supercolonies in the late 1980s that they became a problem. The ants have killed tens of millions of red crabs over the years by spraying them with powerful formic acid. Scientists decided to intervene and placed a micro-spider as prey to eradicate the supercolonies.
The red crab population has more than doubled in the past five years, from 50 million to more than 100 million.
“This iconic natural phenomenon is not only incredible to see, but also a fantastic success story about how we can work together to better protect our precious native species.”
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