Feeling Crabby?

I have, since my better half returned to the Bahamas, and I started thinking crabby thoughts! Where do Andros Island, Bahamas’ land crabs that seem to only come out at night go during the day? They go into holes, and seal themselves in with soft mud to make their burrows air tight. The burrows can be up to a meter in depth to reach the water table where they immerse themselves in water and keep their gills wet. The crabs that have molted emerge from their burrows larger than when they went in. There can be up to a thousand burrows on each acre of uninhabited land. Andros has the largest free roaming population of land crabs in the Bahamas and a large area on central Andros has been set aside as Land Crab National Park.

Why do the land crabs cross the road? (No, they aren't thrill seekers looking for claws calls.) Land crabs mature when they're 4 years old and they cross the road (if a road comes between the mangroves and the beach) when they migrate by the light of the full moon from the forest to the sea to carry their eggs to the ocean where they turn them loose. The eggs drift with the surf, ending up in marshes and mangrove swamps where they finally hatch and begin the metamorphosis that starts the cycle again. Yep, that’s it! Time for me to crab out!