Crab-erization!

On this first episode of our two-episode spooktacular, Bridgett Greenberg and Abe Epperson help us flee from a chitinous terror, a ten-legged devilish decapod, a creepy crustacean crawling closer and closer! ATTACK! OF THE KILLER CRAAAAABS! 

Footnotes: 

1. King "crab" 
2. Porcelain "crab"
3. Hairy stone "crab" 
4. Inspirational tweet 
5. Flower crab spider
6. Another crab spider 
7. Happy face spider
8. Clown face on a green crab spider! 
9. Pubic lice, aka, "crabs" 
10. Halloween crab, spooooky! 
11. Christmas island crabs! 
12. Coconut crab! 
13. Yeti Crabs!
14. Japanese spider crab!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology and Happy Creature. We everybody on this
first episode of our two episodes spook Tacular, we must
flee from a kiteness terror at tin like a devilish decapod,

(00:30):
a creepy crustacean crawling closer and closer. It's attack of
the killer crabs. But first a little story. Imagine you
look up at the sky. It's a full moon. Wait, no,
it's not, it's a waxing crescent. Oh no. You start

(00:50):
to sweat. You feel your body transforming. Your spine crumples
painfully as your arms break from your collar bones stretch
and bending in front of you. As your knees snap
and bend your legs forward, another set of arms sprout
in front of your face, each with a set of
powerful claws, and you feel yet another pair of legs

(01:12):
pop out of your sides. Your skeleton breaks through your skin,
wrapping around your soft insides until you are covered in
a hard, unyielding carapace. Frightened, you try to run and
find the quickest ways to scuttle sideways. You have become
who where crab? Joining me today is small beans, teammates, podcasters,

(01:38):
crabs and friends of the pod and friends to crabs,
Ave Everson and Bridget Greenberg. Hey, hey, hey, I reject
being a friend to crabs. But other than that, that's
that's me. I think you nailed it, Katie. Yeah, I
was teleportedly teleported honestly, that's my new guided meditation. We

(02:02):
are become crabs. I bring up this story of becoming
a crab not just for the pure thrill of it,
but because, guys, it's happening. It's happening all over everything
is becoming crabs. And this is actually called carsonization. And

(02:22):
this is the habit of evolution to keep making crabs
over and over and over again. Just like so just
you're you're talking, there's a term for when nature is
just banging out crabs left and right. Yes, this happens
so frequently it has a term carsonization. So that's just

(02:44):
it's like, the evolution default is crabs. Evolution evolution loves
a crab. It loves a crab. Crab is the best
form apparently. So let me say this. There are many
species of crab. It they all have a common ancestor
and belong to the infraorder brac Eura, which so that's

(03:06):
pretty normal, right, Like you have a bunch of species
of like mice, you have a bunch of species of butterfly.
This is not what I'm talking about. There are many
species of crab, but there are separate species of crustaceans
that keep turning into crabs even though they are not
evolved from crabs. So oh wait, that's so like down

(03:29):
the like genus lime of different species, it just all
like goes back to crab. Is that I took biology?
Is that convergent or is that divergent? Convergent evolution? You
are correct, divergent? Is that really good youth adult novel
Young Adults where the special girl gets to do the

(03:51):
special things? But no, yes, convergent evolution of crabs from crustaceans.
So crustaceans is a whole tax on of animals, scott
lobsters in it, hermit crabs, crayfish, there's a whole bunch
of crustaceans. But crustaceans keep reinventing the crab over and

(04:12):
over again. They're independently evolved crabs, and this has happened
at least five times, probably more, but we've documented it
happening at least five times. So these crabs look exactly
like a crab. They behave very much like a crab.
Sometimes they even have reproductive systems that are extremely crab like.

(04:34):
But they are actually more closely related to a non
crab ancestor than they are too true crabs, so they're
technically not crabs, even though evolution is like, ah, let's
make you a crab again. Though, wow, that is that
is that is And also now that the end of

(04:55):
the time machine makes more sense. When I when everything
was crabs at the end, now I get it. Everything
is crabs. I mean, to be fair, we're mostly talking
about crustaceans turning into crabs, so it's a long shot
from humans turning into crabs, although I will not rule

(05:16):
out I want pulling it out. Well, you know, a
crescent moon comes out, you got a crab, baby, That's
that's what we call the pincer moon. So examples of
this happening is, first of all, king crabs a crab,
were all very well accustomed to It's a crab that

(05:37):
we love to eat. It's those big spiky, reddish, orangeish brown,
long legged crabs that you know, you go to the story,
you see a bunch of crab legs, these big old,
juicy crab legs. That's probably a king crab. And they
actually are not really crabs. They just, you know, they're

(05:57):
just going towards the crabs singularity because they actually evolved
from hermit crabs, which are not crabs. They are not crabs.
They are not crabs. Hermit crabs are not a crab.
They are called See naming of animals is all messed up.
We'll call things that aren't things the things that they aren't.

(06:19):
But you know, hermit crabs are a crustacean, just not
technically a crab. But yeah, they just look like crabs.
It's just they look like crabs. It's one of those
things where I mean, it's kind of a funny distinction,
right because like you have these crustaceans that are closely
related to crabs, and then you have a lineage of

(06:39):
them that all have a common ancestor, and we call
those true crabs. Those are actual crabs. But then you
have hermit crabs, which are related to crabs but are
not crabs then independently evolved into crabs again, and we say, like,
that's not that's not a real crab, even though it's
basically exactly like a crab, because it's independently evolved. So

(07:02):
it's one of those like kind of picky uh taxonomy things.
It's like crab supremacy, Toko, the one true crab, the
one true crabb. Ten minutes in the word crab already
sounds weird to me now that there's name for that.

(07:26):
When yeah, crab crab, Yeah, no, it's done. Yeah, the
meaning has divorced itself from the word already. So it's
called semantic satiation. When you're like activating the neural pathway
of that word so much, your brain just starts to

(07:49):
feel weird about it. So smart, Katie, Yeah, that's how
Stanley Kubrick directs. He like tried to divorce, like he
made actors do take so many times that it was
so mean. He was awful. He was a crab. I
think it was stan crab crab Brick, crab brick, Stanley

(08:10):
crab Brick. Yeah, he certainly was crabby. Okay, podcast over,
we lost everyone down. We've done it. We've ended the
podcast now. So. Another example of one of these not
exactly a crab even though it looks exactly like a
crab is the porcelain crabs, which is a group of

(08:31):
medium sized crabs, and they're actually quite pretty. They can
have really nice body patterns. The spotted porcelain crab I
think is particularly pretty. It kind of looks like it
has a halftone print on their shell. It's kind of
rose rusty, reddish color. It's very pretty. But they are
not real crabs. They evolved from squat lobsters, which squatter

(08:53):
scat lobsters. Squat lobsters. Also, I'm so sorry, guys, but
squat lobsters aren't even lobsters. This is how squat lobsters
are crustaceans that look a bit like flat, weird little lobsters,
but they're technically not lobsters, even though they're sort of
related to lobsters. But they're actually more closely related to

(09:16):
crabs than they are to lobsters. But they are not crabs.
But then they evolved into another crab even though it's
technically not a crab, even though it looks exactly like
a crab. Does this make any sense at all? It does.
My question is, so, what what makes what traits make
a true crab? Pure? True? A true crab is just

(09:41):
you are in this evolutionary lineage where you have the
common ancestor of all crabs. So there's no like specific
trait where you're like, that's a crap, that's not a crab,
because they all look like crabs to me. Right exactly,
it does get a little bit gray area of crabs
where you know, the sort of I decide movement, the

(10:01):
big pincers and claws situated in front of the face
and the legs sprawled out to the side in a
vaguely sort of a squat triangular body. I think that
all is sort of characteristic of a crab, even though
it's not. That is not the definition of a right,
but you know it is again, it's sort of it's

(10:23):
convergent evolution of like crab form. So these these animals
I'm describing, like the the King crab and the Porcelain crab,
they look exactly like a crab. You would you wouldn't
pick this thing up and be like, oh, it's almost
like a crab. No, it's like, exactly, a crab's just
little leggy rocks. Yeah. The other one is the hairy

(10:45):
stone crab, which are small crabs that can fit in
your palm. I think they're kind of cute. They look
like little rocks, and they kind of have these furry
little filaments all over their body. And they may have
either of all from hermit crabs or like another freshwater crustacean.
We're not sure where they come from. To be honest, Aliens,

(11:07):
they are very cute. They are little palm sized crabs.
They're fuzzy. Another group of crabs that are technically not crabs,
even though they look very much like crabs or coconut crabs,
which we're actually going to discuss in detail later. They
are horrifying terrestrial crabs and they actually also evolved from

(11:30):
hermit crabs. Very interesting, interesting crab like animals, very scary.
And then, of course the other group of crabs that
have evolved to look like crabs are the group of
true crabs. Like so there you have five. You have
the King crab, you have the porcelain crab, the Harry
Stone crab, the coconut crabs, and then the true crabs,

(11:50):
the real the o G crabs, Harry Stone That's all
I can think of. Now, were they a crab? No,
they were a very as you would expect if you
pictured a man name Harry Stone. Was a very like
religious Jewish man. Right, Um was crabby? I mean he

(12:13):
didn't leave candy out on Halloween. Yeah, well I've canceled.
I've canceled the podcast twice with that pun. I don't
know how I did it. I brought the podcast back
from the dead to make the crabby pun again, killing
it twice, you know. I mean, it's gonna it's gonna
come up and you can't leave it on the table.
He can't. He can't. I'd get I feel like, I

(12:35):
don't know how if I'd get more complaints from not
using the crabby pun or complaints for using it. So
I'm gonna go with what my heart tells me. And
it's too um hurt people by using the crabby puny
live your best life, man? You do you? Actually? This

(12:56):
whole episode is inspired by a tweet which I love.
Someone found out about carsonization. This is from Amys Pumpkins,
which I think is just the spooky Halloween name at
Cablenet Jumper, who writes crustaceans have evolved into the shape
of a crab at least five independent times. I do

(13:18):
not like this, and so that's kind of a viral tweet.
But in response to that, at Charlotte magnum p I writes,
the arc of the universe is long, but it bends
towards crab. I like crabs. I like I like everything
about crabs. Bridget you don't like crabs, you're mentioning, right, Yes,

(13:41):
I've had several uh crab encounters, and none of them
are positive. I don't know how many times you've interacted
with crabs. But it's not it's not it's not great.
One I lost a friend's hermit crab, which is not
a crab, so I no longer feel bad about it.
If you asked me to babysit them, I don't know why.

(14:02):
It's probably become a cryptod like gotten huge and become
a cryptod. Oh, it still lives in that house, for sure.
But there were there were crabs everywhere growing up in Florida.
They just are around and there truly there was one.
I think I've talked about this at Nauseam, but there is.
There was one that lived by my locker in high school.

(14:26):
This was a terrestrial crab, which I want to mention
to the listeners. Yes, land crabs exist. Crabs can be
on land. There are a number of terrestrial crab species
in Florida. Some king quite large. Yeah, they're they're big.
They're big old crabs. And there was one and he
lived by my locker and anytime I would have to
like get my book super quickly because he was very territorial.

(14:49):
I'm gendering this crab, but he was mean to me.
Anytime it saw me, it would like run at me
in the awkward tiny crab way with its pinchers up
and try to get me, uh not cute. It bullied me.
And then there are if you like walk on grass
in Florida, they're often um just like crab holes, like

(15:11):
yeah they dig burrows. Yeah, they dig burrows. So especially
if you have tiny child feet like I had, uh
when I was a tiny child, you would trip into these,
uh crab holes and in Florida were wearing flip flops
and they would just go for your toes. Yeah, give
you a pinch. I mean, imagine if someone shoved their

(15:32):
foot in your house. Yeah, but you know my house
isn't I picked up from my house as in a
trap for tiny child feet, you know. Also, I mean
on the Halloween theme. I remember very specifically one of
these times I tripped into a crab hole. It was
Halloween and I was tripping into a crab hole. You
know you're talking about actual crabs. Sorry, go ahead, Yes,

(15:53):
And I was dressed as SpongeBob and the crab bit me.
I was dressed as SpongeBob, and the irony was too
strong and I don't like it, and it was very
embarrassing and it was very painful. Bridget was bullied by
crabs growing up. That's um, they followed me. Yeah, that's
pretty rough. I'm sad to hear that I grew up
in California. I've been in California my whole wife, and

(16:15):
so I didn't I don't have a lot of crab access,
you know, but I find my whole life. I found
very ugly things super cute, like I love spiders. I
want to smush those little faces. Crabs are very spider like.
I'll have to have you on an episode where I
gush about how much I love jumping spiders. I love

(16:38):
I love trapdoors. Spiders too cute, They're so cute. I
love the spider that fills in San Diego had the
one where it puts dirt on its face because it's
scared of the world. Total it's it's great energy. I
love spider energy. Speaking of spiders, While I don't think
that carsonization refers to this, I think it is interesting

(17:02):
because the crab like form happens outside of the taxon
of crustaceans in spiders. So some spiders have evolved into
a more crab like shape, which is very inventively called
crab spiders horrifying named because how their body layout is

(17:22):
similar to a crab, including their leg placement and how
they scuttle from side to side. Bridgets have in a moment, Yeah,
I don't. I don't know why that that deeply disturbed me,
and I don't. I was looking at this thing before
kind of and I was like, Oh, that's kind of
cool looking, and now now I don't like it. I
don't like it. It's jointed legs. There's too many joints

(17:46):
on the legs. I don't like. It's normal spider stuff.
It's just the arrangement of the legs is more crab like,
especially in terms of like the way that those those
front legs are kind of held out at its side
and in front. So it truly did bother me until
you begun describing it, and then I had a very
visceral reaction too. I hate this. Yeah, it's pretty, It

(18:09):
is very pretty. This is actually a flower crab spider
which mimics a white flower to lure prey into a
false sense of security. It's a little thing. It's very tiny,
about the size of like a thumbnail, maybe slightly bigger sometimes,
but it's just arranged. It's hard for me to explain exactly,
but it is arranged like a crab, but it is

(18:32):
a spider. It's like you took a crab mold and
put a spider in it and just like pressed it
in there and turned it into a crab. There. It
has the face of a pokemon. It looks like a
orchid to me. I mean, I understand why they call
it the lovely flower spider crab. It's just interesting because
again it's independently evolved these crab like features because probably

(18:54):
it's very useful for it to be able to quickly
escape predator is by scuttling from side to side while
being able to kind of pick up its prey with
those those front legs mammals with our two bipedal movement,
or you know, with four legs, let's kick it up
a notch. Right, Well, you can just like start grabbing things,

(19:17):
that's true. That get a couple of those. Remember those
like dinosaur grabbers where you they were like on a
stick and then you'd like squeeze a button in the
little dinosaur grippy things would like grab things. Yeah, you
guys want to talking about Yeah, just get a couple
of those, and then crab walk around, yeah, every every night.
This is me, your man crab, And that's how the

(19:39):
evolutionary thing happens. The car I only said carcinogen, but
that's not right. It's carsonization. It's the reason you're confusing
it with carcinogen is cancer. The word for you know,
the disease is also the same root word for crab cancer,

(20:00):
which is why why is that we think of them
as a cancer upon the landscape, But fact I am
a cancer. So this whole thing comes all you mean,
like your zodiac not not that you're like being really
rude towards yourself. No, no, I'm not, uh yeah, doing

(20:22):
that Okay. It comes from the Greek word meaning crab,
which also means tumor. I wonder if it's because crabs
are lumpy. Yeah, maybe that's why etymologists and entomologists get
at me. Actually, intomologists doesn't really work because that's not

(20:44):
necessarily crabs ain't bugs. No, they ain't bugs. Crabs ain't bugs.
Crabs is not insects, even though they are both arthropods.
I think it's charming that, like well charming and alarming,
creep creepy, scary that these spiders are sort of like
becoming more crab. Another one is the green crab spider,

(21:10):
which is green shaped vaguely like a crab. And there
is a photo of one of these guys. So their
abdomens can have like brown and yellow and white and
red colorations on them, and sometimes there's like variation in coloration,
and this individual looks like it has a creepy clown face.

(21:33):
I haven't been able to find any other green crab
spiders with the same coloration, so this may just be
a special uh special little boy, little boy, or or
just like this is it? This isn't it? You know,
like how how it becomes like clown spiders, and this
is just that's true. That's pennywise becomes like a spider, right, yea, yeah,

(22:02):
this is sort of a tangent because this spider does
not look like a crab. But if you want a
spider that almost always has like a cool clown face
on it, it is the Hawaiian happy face spider. And
it's abdomen has this happy face on it with a
big smiling red mouth, too little dots for eyes, and
then it looks like little slightly concerned eyebrows. I find

(22:26):
it really cute. Like people are like, oh, it's creepy,
creepy clown. I think it's kind of cute. Yeah, that's
that's that's super cute. He kind of looks in fighting
and like ready to party. I kind of like it.
I mean his face is actually on his real faces.
On the opposite end, it just looks like when you
look at it, he kind of looks like I'm run
at a party. Yeah, it looks like spider, right, And

(22:50):
the back legs, which are kind of bent backwards, look
like little arms kind of raising like raising the roof. Yeah,
that spider could get me to take shots with it.
I would take I think of how cute it would
be if you were to take the two middle two
legs on each side and just yank those right out
of there. Oh my god, what the hell? Yeah, it

(23:12):
would be like you psychopath they have They have got
like a little fans. It looks like a cartoon, like
a drawing that I would make as a kid, like
where you didn't really know how to draw bodies. So
it's just like, yeah, exactly, if you think it's cute
with all its legs, please leave them on. I'm not

(23:32):
gonna I'm not gonna rip off legs as spiders. Monster
real monster was Abe all along? Team crab, your team crab.
Getting back to crabs. One though, is you know why
pubic lice are called crabs. I was going to ask
this question, Yeah, pubic life. They are little tiny Arthur

(23:55):
pods that are you know? They are a big new
since they get in your hair and cause a lot
of itching and problems. They are shaped vaguely like a crab.
It's a little bit of a stretch to me, but
I see it. I see the crab shape of them,
and that's why they're called crabs because I would imagine

(24:16):
they look like lice, which do you like crabs. No,
they look pretty crab like. I was gonna google it
on my own, but then I got scared. You're very brave. Yeah,
I think it's kind of it's kind of got a
little bit of the crab shape. Yeah, I see it.
I also don't like it because it looks like there's

(24:36):
hair coming out of it too. And yeah, it's got
bristles on it, which is always bristle. Bristles can be cute,
but they can also not be cute. I think it
depends on sort of the orientation and density of the bristles. Yeah,
you need a lot more for it to be cute.
I wish everybody could see the because like the face
part I assume of the crab. If it's just that

(24:59):
it looks like a guy, yeah, like extending his arms out.
He's like, what, it looks amazing. We'll include I'll include
a picture, a safer work picture in the show notes
of the Pubic Life. Yeah, the Pubic Life gotta involuntary

(25:20):
twitch for me. Elicit at that response. So I don't
like it. I think its name isn't doing it any
favors either. But anyways, the point of all this is
to say that nature loves a crab and loves a
crab shape, and keeps turning crustaceans and even some arthropods
into crab shapes. And it makes me wonder like, if

(25:41):
there's aliens out there, maybe they two would prefer the
ultimate form, the purest form, the best form, the crab form,
the yes the crab a verse verse. I mean, honestly,
having an exo skeleton makes more sense than being soft
on the outside. But I mean, there are a lot
of rustaceans that have a hard carapace. It's just that

(26:04):
they seem to keep going into that crab shape. They
love it. I mean, more legs equals faster, right again though,
like they have this. It's not that they grow more legs,
it's that the specific shape, this like sort of triangular
side stepper with the big claws in the front and
the legs split out to the sides like that is

(26:28):
they they love it. They love the crab shape, this
very specific crab shape. It's so weird because crabs move
so awkwardly and like like like clums It doesn't seem
like it's an easy way to move, right, They're not agile.
Well when you think about it though, so crabs can
move forward and backwards and diagonally, although not as easily

(26:50):
as they can move from side to side. But if
you think about it, like if they're evading predators that
move forwards and backwards mostly and the crabs just zip
off to the side. Aid, it's like they're they're playing
like for d chess. You know, they're like moving to
the side when you're moving front and back. They're a
different plane, right, I mean, it's like what you always
shout in horror movies when someone's like running away from

(27:13):
like a giant boulder or a giant like a tree
falling down, or an airplane or like a monster. It's
like they're always running in a straight line when it's
like no zig zag, like dart off to the side,
like that's a legit strategy. Yeah, they just it's a
super awkward way of moving again again and it works.

(27:34):
Like again, like if you're Indiana Jones and giant boulder
is rolling towards you, like why running a straight line?
Run to the side, ding dong. That is true. And
we did learn in uh Florida public schools how do
you avoid gator attacks? And they don't have good peripheral vision,
so you are supposed to like get around trap off

(27:56):
the way exactly, so you know many is this is
why I think that we should become crabs. Just putting
out there, we'll see well, by the end of this,
I think I'll convert you into crab people. Crab people. Yeah,

(28:16):
I've been bitten and I've been or pinched enough times
that you know I should have the DNA woman. Your
superpower is scuttling from side to side very fast and
being able to pick things up and put them in
your mouth with great ease. Yes, I do like yeah,

(28:37):
like that, And of course the pinching and the pinching
Carsonization isn't always skin deep. Crab like crustaceans that evolved
independently can share many things with crabs. Aside from looks
such as reproductive organ similarity and similarities and sexual dimorphism
that is, the defining differences between the males and the females,

(29:00):
there could even be similarities down to the circulatory in
neurological systems. If it crawls like a crab and like
a crab, it isn't in fact necessarily a true crab.
When we return, you may want to head for high
ground to escape these monsters. But that won't help you
escape our most horrifying len crabs. What are crabs covered

(29:30):
in kitan? Of course, an exoskeleton that protects and armors
their soft bodies. Imagine if our skeletons were on the outside.
Who spooky skeletons. So, now that we know that the
universe prefers a crab, let's talk about some some crabs,
some of the coolest crabs. Some of these are true crabs,

(29:51):
some of these are very crab like crustaceans. But first
we're gonna talk about terrestrial crabs. Your favorite fine bridget
can come on land and cuddle EO with their pian chers.
They all live in my business. So first, appropriately, let's

(30:11):
talk about Halloween crabs, and that is exactly what they
are called. They are called Halloween crabs. I love these
these little dudes so much. They are so cute. Yeah,
they're cool. They are very cool. They look like they
come from hot topic or like what's the what's the

(30:32):
pop up Halloween shop? Halloween Spirit or Halloween Spirit. It's
very hot topic, Halloween Spirit. These are land crabs found
in mangrove and rainforests on the Pacific coast from Mexico
to Panama. They are adorable, spooky little halloweeny crabs. They

(30:53):
have bright orange legs, purple claws, a black carapace with
two booky yellow spots on top. So like when you're
looking at it head on, it looks like a jack
o lantern, even though those yellow spots are not actually
it's eyes. It's got like these two yellow spots and
then like a yellow spot in the middle, and so

(31:15):
it looks like a jack o lantern. Yeah, it really
does remind me of like party city version of like
um getting a Halloween costume where they're like off brand
and the colors are wrong, like they just threw a
bunch of things together and said, yeah, that's a cool
reverse jack O' lantern where where the pumpkin is black

(31:35):
and the eyes and the orange and of course the
jack land's purple arms. Yes, of course you can't forget
about those. It's also this is a very shiny picture,
so I don't know if that's why, but it kind
of looks like a balloon, Like it looks like one
of those Milar balloons. Yes, yes, I want to smush
its face, like off color Milar balloon of a jack o' lantern,

(31:59):
like with like someone made a printing error and ingust
the colors and like, uh yeah, and then I'm just
realizing sort of, um uh it's underbelly like where actually
it's mouth parts are um, that's all orange and so
it kind of that part looks like a big grinning
smile like a jack o' lantern again, like inverse an

(32:21):
inverse jack o lantern with a big orange smile and
then sort of yellow eyes and a yellow nose. Yeah,
that's fun. This is very spooky, very but spooking a
very cute way, sort of a Tim Burton spooky, very
nightmare before Christmas kind of crab. Yeah. And they are
a little little tiny dude, so they're pretty cute. They

(32:42):
only grow to be a couple of inches big. They're
about five centimeters big. Um, and they are They just
like to munch on vegetation found in leaf litter and
burrow in little holes. So uh, they're I think they're
pretty cute. This is I feel like this would be
a fun surprise, like you up over Halloween, crab Borough
and it just like pops out and it's like, yahoo,

(33:08):
those are some big Those are big claws. Though there
are swords to its body size. I mean, remember this
is only a couple of inches big, so it's going
to be like one of those clauses, maybe the size
of pinky. So yeah, that's too bad. Not too bad. Um,
And they live completely on land and they only returned

(33:30):
to the ocean to breed like a lot of terrestrial crabs.
Horny as crabs. Speaking of horny crabs, let's talk about
Christmas Island crabs. That too many nightmare before Christmas crab
action going on. That is a frenk island. I'm looking

(33:52):
at a frenk island. That's too many. I don't have
the island. I don't like when there are too many things.
It could be anything if there are too many, and
like even puppies, I'm just like, that's too many. Let
me explain to the listener why Bridget and Ave are
having a meltdown here. Christmas Island crabs flood the land

(34:12):
with a writhing, living sea of crabs in their migration
to and from the ocean during breeding season. So h
there are these I didn't like. I didn't like it,
but it's aft, it's aft. So as adults they grow
to be about five inches, which is about eleven centimeters.

(34:36):
They are bright red and they're called Christmas Island crabs
because they live on Christmas Island and Cocos Island in
the Indian Ocean. Um, they are terrestrial crabs. They like
to live in forests and basically they will eat any
organic material they find. It's often again like leaf litter,

(34:57):
little organic bits, but they will eat like avenge, like
dead bugs or dead rodents and stuff. Sometimes they only
returned to the sea to breed, which they do an
absolutely massive quantities. Millions and millions of them will go
in a mass migration. They follow the phases of the

(35:19):
moon to guide their annual migration back to the sea,
usually in the fall or winter. And I think the
reason for this is tides, Like they want to get
there at a good time for the tides because if
they're mating and releasing their eggs, they wanted to kind
of align all good with that. Um. I'm not sure

(35:39):
if that's true, but that would be my guess, um
instinctual kind of right exactly. Or they're witches or their
witches or where crabs. Again, we've established that a real
very real wouldn't really be oh would it. It would
be like little little clack clack clack. Yeah, could turn

(36:09):
into bad crab SMR. Welcome to my new genneral crab
SMR just got some fine normal SMR worm. These ones
look like these look very sebastian esque to me. Yes, yeah,
they're bright red classic crab. This is classic crab. Is

(36:32):
exactly like cartoon crab. Yeah, is this true a true crab?
This is a true crab. It really is crab classic. Yeah,
it's it's a Mr Crabs kind of Yeah, exactly. I'd
let this crab run my burger joint. Yes. And so
the spectacle of millions of crabs marching into the sea

(36:52):
is as incredible as you might think. It's a literal
flood of crabs swarming the streets, the sidewalks and crawl
all over everything to get back to their ocean. To
have a giant crab orgy. Um. Roads have to be
closed to protect the crabs because and I assume also
your car because like that you don't want to it's

(37:17):
mostly to protect the crabs. But again, like you don't
want to run over like a bunch of crabs. That's
no good, that's not good for the undercard that could
Papa tire, and the crabs try to make this migration
as quickly as possible so they don't dry out. Now,
while crabs can live on land, they actually don't have
lungs like a lot of terrestrial animals. They have gills

(37:40):
that still require moisture for gas exchange to occur. So basically,
as long as they're gill stlets are kind of moist
which I love talking about moist gill slets. What asks
gill stlets um, then oxygen can sort of dissolve into
the the moisture around their gill stlets and they can
uh read that in and so they scuttle. They scuttle

(38:03):
as fast as they can go. The migration can take
a couple of weeks um. Human activity has to heat
and bear witness to all the crabs at this time.
It there's simply too much crabs to just go about
business as usual. Once they're at the ocean, the males
create burrows, and actually the males usually get there before

(38:25):
the females. Am I right, a regressive crab huma, so
that gives them extra time to build these burrows and
then the females will arrive. Males kind of compete for
the females, and then they mate inside the burrows, and
then the females will stay there while the males return
to the island, and the females stay in these burrows

(38:50):
for a few days, protecting their eggs in a brood sack,
and when they're ready, they will scuttle over to the
ocean and do what looks like this sort of jigglie
dance with their like claws, race in the air and
they're just like shutowing dance, and that's actually to deposit
their eggs into the ocean. And there's a lot of
eggs and a lot of crabs doing this at the

(39:11):
same time, so you can probably imagine what that looks like.
I just a lot, a lot, a lot of a
lot of eggs. I think I decided what the party
crab was too soon. I mean that was a spider.
I mean we got a party spider and these are
the party crabs. Can you imagine if like that's how
we gave birth and just like at a party, like

(39:33):
baby baby, baby baby. Honestly, I would prefer that, I
think from from right, just shooting babies out, just being
like look how far like go along, go along? Let's
shoot this baby out. From what I understand of birth,
that seems like a more pleasant experiences fun. Yeah, I
like that. But the females will also return to the

(39:54):
island once they have laid their eggs. And I always,
I always love an animal that's not similar Paris, meaning
these do not just breed once. It's kind of nice
that they go on this adventure, lay their eggs and
then they go back to their lives. Like it's always
sad to me when there's like a big spawning event,
like with salmon, there's a huge spawning event and then
the salmon just die. It just seems really tragic to me.

(40:16):
So these crabs, though, they lost a good amount of time,
so they'll they'll return back to the island smoke a cigarette,
get back to the collective island. Just a huge waft
of smoke comes up. There are so many pictures of
crabs holding cigarettes, and it's sad because it's litter, but

(40:36):
it is funny because they talk every time. It's hilarious.
It's it's yeah, I mean, these are truly Yeah, they
have Like I like that they have like a month
off work to go party on the island. They do
a little dance, A little dance. Yeah, leave they have
a big orgy. It's awkward because they probably run into

(40:56):
some of their crab coworkers. That what happens at the
Christmas Island crab orgies stays at the Christmas Island crab orgy.
It's crab rub springer, but it happens. And just think
about like how dense this area is. Like so you're
freaking and you like look over and you're like, oh, hey,
what's up, Dave. They do they do actually breed inside

(41:19):
the burrows, so there's a little bit of privacy there,
so all right, but they lay their eggs all together,
so it's like, you know, it's just like hey, girl
and then just like splorching out a bunch of Yes,
the propriety of crabs big birthday party. So so story
over right, You got your mating, your mass migration story

(41:41):
just beginning. When there's a mass mating event and these
are terrestrial crabs, what happens to the babies? You guys
have the babies, so many millions and millions and babies
the children's Yeah, actually a lot of them will get
eaten that you know, all's fair and mass mating a

(42:07):
lot of them will survive, and they actually go through
larval stages in the ocean, and after about a month
they returned to the shore, molting into tiny crabs, just know,
itty bitty baby crabs about five millimeters big, real, itty bitty,
about the size of like a thumbnail. And these little

(42:29):
babies begin a mass migration to the island. And I
mean there's something about like, when you see the mass
migration of the adult crabs, it's like, okay, yeah, like
a bunch of crabs. There's something I guess a little
bit weird about it, a little maybe intimidating. But with
the baby crabs, it is just a carpet of millions

(42:49):
and millions of bright red, itty bitty crabs, and it's
hard to even tell what you're looking at. It just
looks like a furry, giant, furry moving carpet, letting down
like storm drains and crawling over sidewalk. I remember this
video of this, like little kittie sitting on the sidewalk,

(43:09):
scooping up baby crabs and like trying to like it
was like trying to eat them. But I think it
just got so overwhelmed. It was like staring at this
red sea of baby crabs, and the cat I could
tell was having an existential crisis. I have just one.
I imagine the Indiana Jones and the Ants scene in

(43:31):
the Crystal Skull on where they just devour everything that
they just walked through behind shell. Yeah, because you said
they're like millimeters, So if there's millions of them and
they're like walking over each other, it's just yeah, like
you said, like a wave of crab. Fortunately, they're mostly
focused on reaching the forest so they can kind of

(43:53):
hide under the leaf litter and get n some moisture
and get some security. A lot of them will die
on the journey and fortunately, um, they can't skeletalize account. No,
I'm kidding, they can't do that. Actually, speaking of ants,
the real horror story is that there are these things
called yellow crazy ants that I mean, that's just like

(44:14):
literally their name, and they are an invasive species on
these islands and they are actually threatening the crab population.
Although this may be a case where there's just so
many crabs that there's just no way that the ants
can win, which so I'm rooting. I'm rooting for the crabs.
When it's crab versus ant, I root for the crabs. Yeah,

(44:36):
ants are kind of op to yah for biomass man ants.
He can't beat him. Yeah, there, their organization is scarier
than these crabs. But this baby crab, it's it's it's
like a reverse sea turtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually yeah,

(44:57):
I like that too. They're like reverse to turtles and
to me, honestly, just as cute, maybe more intimidating a
threatening aura because of how many they are, but cute also.
I but I went to watch sea Turtles hatch when
I was a kid, and I was like, no, that's
too many. We gotta go. We got I know they're

(45:19):
they're real cute, and I'm wishing them all the best,
but Rusphoria, but there are too many of you, and
it's it's just it's like little zombies coming out of
the ground. And like part of me this sounds weird,
I understand, but part of me just wants to lie
down in the path of these Christmas Island crabs and
let them crawl all over me. And we're like, I'm

(45:39):
covered in little crab puppies. Yeah, because they got like
they've got a plan. They you know, you're not a
part of their plans. So they're probably not gonna do anything.
I might get little pinchies from like little baby crabs,
but the hurt me. Although it is You're right, it
is a little intimidating. I'm looking at the top image
that you're showing, and there's a kind of a retaining

(46:01):
wall that they're keeping get them away from the streets
so that the crabs don't get run over by cars.
But you can tell in the distance crabs are climbing
on top of crabs, on top of crabs in order
to get in. It's like that scene in World War
Z A zombies are climbing on top of each other,

(46:21):
and they're actually people that have to like sweep the
crabs off the road, both for the crab safety and
for to allow cars to pass, so which just like
sweeping all these crabs off, just very casually. It's like
cane toads in Australia, Oh, kane toads, though those aren't
cute at all. I have I have a brudge against

(46:42):
cane toads because they're an invasive species that threatened the
beautiful qual Anyways, that's another episode. Actually we did that
in an invasive species episode, so check that out to
find out why why cane toads are such a nightmare
fascinating story. Speaking of nightmare ers, though, while Christmas Island

(47:02):
crabs have sheer numbers on their side, coconut crabs are
uncomfortably chunky and big. Yeah. A picture of a coconut
crab on a trash can, and it's like it's a

(47:24):
trashed around this trash can. Yeah, it's like the size
of a trash can lid. Hell yeahs horrified. No, I
actually mentioned this crab earlier talking about carsonization, because these
are not true crabs. They are evolved from hermit crabs,

(47:45):
and boy did they evolve because they are big, big, old.
That's when I remember of my friend's hermit crab lost.
Oh man, they look like face huggers, but like, yeah,
well yeah, they do look like face face huggers, but like,
imagine a face hugger that's like maybe six times the size,

(48:06):
yeah of your face. Yeah head crabs from Half Life
two and Half Life one exposed to the half Life's Yeah.
So these are found on coastal habitats and islands across
the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. They are the largest
terrestrial arthropod in the world. Uh, they have these big

(48:27):
hard shells and colors ranging from brown to burgundy to blue,
kind of modeled with some like lighter colors. Uh, it'd
be kind of it'd be kind of pretty if they weren't,
you know, so horrifying, if they weren't about like six
times too big. Yeah, And it's not just their size,

(48:48):
it's like there they look beefy. Their muscular how do
you know how much like one of these would weigh
which they weigh up to about nine pounds, which is
four kilograms, and they reach a span of about three
ft from foot to foot, so that's about one meter.

(49:08):
That's like a that's a big human baby. That's a
big human baby. Also, don't leave your human babies around
these tiny dog ground that eating about the way length. Yeah,
they're kind of like, yeah, it's something. It's uncomfortable. It's
an uncomfortable looking animal. They are hunky and chunky and

(49:32):
ready to rumble. They actually Darwin just called them monstrous,
makes sense. They have giant meaty claws, just big, big, big, wow,
big claws. They like other land crabs. They are scavengers
and they'll basically scavenge on anything, fruits, leaves dead bodies

(49:58):
the worst thing you could have said. Yes, they will
eat carrion. They're also called Robert crabs because they love
to steal things that they find on the ground, settle
off with it, and like possibly eat it. Um. Sometimes
they kill live birds if the bird is not fast enough,
and slowly eat them alive. Yeah, I mean, these guys

(50:22):
can bully most things pretty well. Their claws are so beefcakes.
They have incredible force with a grip of three hundred Newton's,
which is ten times stronger than a human's grip. They
can literally break bones with this grip. They can, and
that's how they can eat dead bodies, like carrying and

(50:45):
just like crunch the bone. In fact, there's a conspiracy
theory that coconut crabs dismembered Amelia Earhart's body after she died.
Basic This is based on there was a badly fractured
and dismembered skeleton found on nickumarro Ro Island near where

(51:08):
she had crashed. This it's impossible to know this is true,
but it's just speculated. Like if she died there and
coconut crabs who lived there like came across her body,
they could potentially dismember her and carry off her body
parts and eat them, which maybe why like different parts
of the skeleton are found in different places and seems

(51:28):
to be badly fractured. Do you guys know the actor
Michael chicklists, he's from the shed or the you know
the thing, uh, the original. He's a beefy, bald headed guy.
This crab the Michael chicklists of the crab Kingdom. Baby

(51:53):
coconut crabs are actually kind of cute. They really show
you how they evolved from hermit crabs because when they're
small that they actually hide in land snail shells until
they grow big and strong with hard carapaces and claws
so that they can at that point defend themselves. But
when they're little babies, they just kind of look like
hermit crabs. It always comes back to snails on this podcast.

(52:16):
Something so endearing about animal king like the co opting
of like, well, I'm just gonna like how opportunistic but
que like, oh I found a little thing, uh and
it's like, you know, the shell of a different thing,
but that's my house. Now. Why why grow your own
shell and you can lease it? Yeah? Exactly, exactly, Yeah,

(52:37):
I just written my friend's hermit crabs. She painted one
like Mr Crabs and we were just like waiting for
it to move into the Mr Crab shell, and it
never wanted to. It's every Yeah, they will, they will
inspect these shells, make sure it's the right dimensions. Like,
if you own a hermit crab, you should probably actually

(52:58):
give it a few else to choose from. I never
chost the one we wanted it to choose. Actually had
a hermit crab as a kid, and one time it
crawled up into my armpit, pinched meat and refused to
let go. And I was actually near tears because I
wanted to get it out of my armpit, and I

(53:19):
could have just ripped it off, but I was scared
of hurting its little arm so I was just like,
I guess it lives in my arm I was tested
out the specks of your pit. Yeah, like it was
thinking of maybe like moving in there. Like that's its
new that's its new home is my armpit. And I
become half girl, half hermit crab house. Not hermit crab,

(53:41):
but hermit crab house. It's just give me the food,
little girl. We shall become one unit, and you shall
listen to what I say. You got your little own
like armpit quatto. I just like it's like drags along
my body like a big shell. It's a real real

(54:02):
ginge Eto style horror. Yeah. One of these coconut crabs
the edible you get a lot of meat off that.
Actually I think they are and I've heard they're actually
quite good tasting because that's a lot of meat you get.
You get like a good bank for your box. Because
I've heard coconut crab, but I'm trying to remember if

(54:23):
it's an actual coconut crab just crabbing mixed with co coconut. Yeah,
It's could go either way on I assume they're called
coconut crabs because like there's especially they're in there like
I guess stor x area their body, their main bulk,
bulbous like coconut looking. Yeah. Actually it is eaten in

(54:46):
parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands uh and
is considered to be quite tasty. So yeah, what happens
to a dead body when it's dumped in the ocean
gets devoured of course by a variety of creatures, and
especially crabs. They like to pick dead flesh off of

(55:07):
cadavers that sink to the bottom of the sea. Think
about that next time you enjoy some soft shelled crab.
When we return, we'll discover all kinds of creepy crawleys
that like to chomp on cadavers deep under the sea.
So you're running away from Freddie Jason and Michael Myers

(55:31):
and you're doing it underwater, Well, you're in a tough spot.
And oh no, they've got your arm. Well, no sweat,
You're a porcelain crab, and you can just pop your
arm right off. You can grow a new one, and
you'll leave your pursuers bamboozled. This is a trick other
crabs can do as well, But porcelain crabs are the

(55:52):
masters of disarming themselves. Of course, who knows if this
technique will save you from the terrifying sea monsters were
now going to discuss. So we've talked about how the
the ark of the universe bends towards crab. We've talked
about land crabs. Now let's go back into the water
and talk about marine crabs that are spookey Halloween crab,

(56:20):
spooky crabs like the Little Mermaid. But the Little Mermaid
is dead and all her friends are skeletons, and Sebastian's
eating her. Sebastian. It's like in the Corpse Bride where
she has her little friend animals, the little maggot inside
her skull and like pops out of her eyeball. It's

(56:41):
like that, but it's like a crab eating eating arials brains. Yeah,
I love that. I'm just I'm super into that. Very cute. First,
let's talk about the Jetti crab. So this is very
appropriately named. Yeah, it's big jetty arms. It's like, uh,
it's like Sully from Monsters, Inc. As a crab. Yeah,

(57:03):
it's a white crab with these big, old, hairy yetty arms,
and its legs are harry. It's carapace. The rest of
its body is actually not harry, so it makes those
hairy arms even more interesting looking. It's like, uh, god,
I am forgetting the name. But like the Banana Lady

(57:25):
who comes out and she has like the big puffy
arms like arm ruffles. Yeah, it looks exactly like the
Chickida Banana Lady exactly in everything else other than a crab,
and she was a crab fruit fruit platter on his head.
These are found in the depths of the South Pacific

(57:47):
Sea on the ocean floor at about two thousand, two
hundred meters below, which is about seven thousand two d
I got a surprise for you, guys. Do you have
a crab with you right now? Am I gonna like it?
Or am I gonna hate it? I don't know, but
you guys, this is again not a real crab. Bamboozled again,

(58:10):
just CBS the universe pumping out more crab like evolutions.
So this is actually this is a crustacean. It is
a decapod. It's its own family of weird, hairy, armed decapods,
related to again the squat lobsters, which are not lobsters lobster,
squat lobster. No no, no, no, no no no. It's

(58:34):
all I can think about is Sometimes it's also called
a yeti lobster, although to me it looks more like
a crab, but it's neither a crab nor a lobster.
They are mostly blind. It seems their hair on their
arms are actually filaments covered in bacteria, which may detoxify

(58:55):
water that comes from thermal vents. So it's like they've
got their own bread of filters on their arms. Hell, yeah,
nature rules. That's pretty cool bacteria. But then when it
said filter, I was like, okay, hey, these are helpful
bacteria because like the water coming out of these thermal
vents can have like toxic minerals in it, and then

(59:16):
these like arms like help filter it out before it
reaches their giltlets. This is also the crab that I
would want to bring to like a protest, because they
would like extend their arm up and you'd see it
from afar. Yeah, they got real long arms. Yeah. I
feel like these are kind of spooky, but in the
same way that like yetties and sasquatches are spooky, where

(59:38):
it's like sort of a threatening aura, but also I
kind of want to hug them. Yeah, they got big
long arms for hugs. They got big fluffy arms full
of helpful water purifying bacteria to hug me with, and
I like it. Yeah, comfortable, safe arms, right, And that's
that's the last cute crab. I think we're just guessing today,

(01:00:01):
you guys, because now we're going to talk about Japanese
spider crabs. I've seen these. I've seen these before, scared
to scrawled down. These are some spooky crabs. Oh my god.
Do you see a tiny man holding a normal sized crab? Nope,
it's a normal sized man holding a giant crab. Those noises,

(01:00:24):
I came out, We're in voluntary. I'm so sorry. It's okay,
it's good. This is why I brought you on, Bridget
is uh, because I remember this conversation we had when
you were like, oh, man, crabs they bullied me, and
I was like, you know what, let's explore let's exploit
that trauma for the podcast. Yeah, you're you're almost always

(01:00:52):
I've painted myself into this corner. I didn't warn you,
and I actually did directly tell you like I want
on because I know you hate crabs and we're going
to talk about crab. Yeah I did not, and you said,
yes I did, because I was like, I'm not scared
of them. I've just had a lot of bad interactions
with crabs and it turns out, no, I don't like them.

(01:01:15):
So this is actually a true crab and it is
the biggest, longest legged arthropod in the world. So they
got big old games. Do those legs go all the
way up? They pertainly? Do I want like I want
a team, like a like a Buddy Cop movie between

(01:01:37):
a coconut crab and a Japanese spider crab. Yeah, yeah,
legs in the chunk Man. Yeah exactly, there you got it.
So you should pitch that legs, legs and the chunk Man.
It's like legs, gota we gotta we gotta got cigarettes
and legs. It's like yes, talks like the who was

(01:02:00):
that guy in uh? He's like an Alice in Wonderland.
The voice I forgot Johnny Depp, No, the old one,
the old Disney one, ed Wynn ed Wyn. Yeah, yeah,
that's what that's the voice I imagine for the spider crab.
Just like anything with like super long legs. You just

(01:02:22):
immediately excuse me while I walk over. It's like I
imagine it kind of spookily crossing the ocean floor with
the soundtrack of Do it's always doing the like WB
Frog thing and it's a little top hat and then

(01:02:45):
it cut and then it cuts to the cooking and
crab and it's just like weird, weird. I mean, this
is like the Jack Skellington of crabs. It's like it's
so they're leg to leg span reaches up to a
little over twelve feet four meters. They can wait to
be up to about forty two pounds nineteen kgs. They

(01:03:07):
are found off the coast of Japan's hans Shue Island
in the deep Ocean at about fifty to six hundred
meters so a hundred sixty ft. They are big and spooky,
but they are actually described as non aggressive and have
what's called a gentle disposition. Like you know again like
Jack Skellington, like this is crab a wing crab, a

(01:03:29):
wing crab a wing here too, pinch you with my legs,
bridget imagine the dunks that this I know that it
has like a Dwight Howard wings right, crabsketball crabskt ball.
Now there's gonna launch itself up and just dunk. Don't

(01:03:49):
I mean I could stand at like the half court
line and just lazily reach over. Yeah, I mean is
a monstar that's kind of like that, right, Yeah, yeah,
the show Bradley Monster, the Blue Ones, Right, but yeah,
like there's just no you know, it just puts its
arm up and it's it's just a defensive monster. It's
just ma tumbo wearing everybody. Don't you imagine giving like

(01:04:12):
a high five you just like high five. It's like, sure,
it doesn't even need to move. Yeah, that's dope. There's
something there's something about it though, being gentle that screeps
me out a little bit. Like if these were aggressive,
I'd be like, yeah, these are like, you know, ocean monsters.
But because they're gentle scavengers, just like daintily picking up

(01:04:36):
things with their long, long, spindly legs, there's something. It's
just like it's worth waiting for, yeah, because it makes
you feel like it's going to come out and touch you.
Like it right, It's kind of like pet your face
gently and right. It's like in Split when James McAvoy
McAvoy macavoy, uh macavoy goes for I'm being uh, you know,

(01:05:02):
like a monster to being a sweet person, being like
I've made you a sandwich. It's so unsettling because you
know it can kill you. Yeah, I mean I don't
think these guys to be to be perfectly honest, I
don't think that these can kill you. They even though
they have really long spindly legs, there are actually their

(01:05:22):
cloths are kind of dainty. Uh. One of these the
minute to reach out like the breakable bones by the way,
for every single crab that you've shown us today, Katie,
I've in my head said, like, I could take this.
I could take this crap, not the coconut, the coconut
crap that could like, I don't know, my money is

(01:05:42):
on the Yeah, no, my money is on that coconut crowd.
It has a grip ten times that of a human abe.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you, like,
but I don't know. I'm crafty, but I think I
could do it. Tool should Yeah, we can set this up.
Let's claws where your mouth is. Yeah, there you go.

(01:06:07):
So the Japanese spider crabs are I'm never scavengers. They'll
basically eat anything they can pick up with their long,
spindly claws, which is great. Love that. And sometimes they
camouflage themselves by picking up sea sponges and other sedentary
organisms and put them on their carapace to sort of
like blend in more with their environment, which again just

(01:06:28):
imagine one of these guys like just gonna pick this
up with my long leg, gonna pick it up with
my really really long leg, Gonna put it on my
crazy body. Now I look like a see sponge and
bust up. How does this thing think it blends in
It's like a tripod. It's like so unlike any formation

(01:06:50):
that the ocean. It's got to be. Yeah, it's so big.
It's not working, buddy. It probably uses the camouflage more
when it's younger and more vulnerable. But I do love
the idea of just one of these massive adults still
in the habit of doing this, picking up a tiny
sea sponge and being like, I'm just gonna put this

(01:07:10):
on my body. No, there we go nowhere, practically invisible.
It's also got these pictures that are perfect for like
bringing into frame a top hat. My god, I don't
it doesn't. It does make you're kind of right about

(01:07:31):
the sociopath thing. Like I do think that maybe it's
got like a family kidnapped in the basement because it's
too nice. If it's got a gentle disposition, as you said,
do Do Do Do your dreams, gets close enough and
just like tickles you and scampers away, but it's just
so threatening. Yeah. I don't understand how this thing moves either.

(01:07:54):
Is it like scuttering or is it taking like big
long stripes spit long smooth move strides that was what
I was hoping you wouldn't say our crab legs. You
might know this, Katie, because you're you know, this is
your podcast. Do do spider legs and crab legs work similarly? Well?

(01:08:15):
Spider legs use hydraulics mostly to move, whereas I think
crab legs actually have muscle in them. So not exactly,
because I know that when a spider dies, like it
it crumping calls up because of the well, right, because

(01:08:37):
like it's essentially the spiders are moving with hydraulics where
you have these fluids inside the leg changing pressure and
that helps the legs to move. But I think crabs
actually have they rely more on muscle to move. It's
fascinating that it's still can achieve from an exterior same

(01:08:58):
kind of you know, look to my eyes. Yeah, the
joints like that, and yeah, they developed the same similar
number of legs. Spiders do have muscles, they just I
think they rely more on hydraulics than crabs do, whereas
crabs rely more on the muscle. Cool, thank you for that.

(01:09:19):
Crab legs. Now, I've shown you all these crabs some
terrifying and stuff, but I've actually liked all of them
like I'm I'm sort of one of these people who
just like, I'll love it pretty much any animal. We're
getting to the crab that actually scares me. Uh, And

(01:09:39):
this is not it's not the biggest crab, it's not
the hairiest crab. It's just the worst crab. It's the
worst thing to look at. This is called the arrowhead crab.
It is fat. I haven't scrolled down yet. I'm so scared. Yeah,
it's it's a hid is. It is found in the
Atlantic Ocean from Carolina to Argentina. They live in coral reefs.

(01:10:04):
So again, like, they're not like a deep sea crab,
they're not here. There's nothing that like tips you off
like this is gonna be the spookiest crab in the
ocean until it walks into frame and you're like, I'm
it's all haunted. It's all haunted. They're horrible legs and
ten percent horrible weird little body. Uh. They look like

(01:10:27):
you took an umbrella, removed all the fabrics lit those
weird spindley umbrella wires. I'm not really sure what they're called.
The spokes like the spokes of the umbrella, just but
they're alive and they scamper around. Yeah, and if it
was made of bones, like very thin phone, I don't
you know that's seen in Coraline where the other mother's

(01:10:49):
hand that like mechanical hand cut off and it's like
shaped like a spider, but like made out of umbrella
spokes like it's like that, but crab. I want to
see this thing move because my favorite I wish it
just jumps and spins. You're in luck, abe. I have
included links to YouTube videos, also including these in the

(01:11:11):
show notes if you guys would like to see. The
first one is actually of an arrowhead crab molting, which
is probably the worst thing I've ever seen. The other
one is just one of these little scamps scuttle scuttling
around a reef having a good old time. Um, but
let me continue to explain what these look like to
the listeners. So, their legs are long, thin, and spind lee.

(01:11:37):
They're not actually that big, it's just the proportion of
the legs to the body, so they do actually look
a lot like giant daddy long legs. Their legs grow
up to be about four inches or ten centimeters long,
but again it's like their legs are so long, and
their body is so tiny compared to their legs. It
just looks like a horrible alien umbrella spider. But speaking

(01:12:00):
of their body, their bodies are bad to look at
as well, because they're their carapace is shaped like a
weird triangle, and their rostrum, which is basically the beak
of a crab. When you think of a rostrum, like
you know how like shrimp have that that face and
then like the head kind of like comes to a
point that's like that that little beak part is like

(01:12:21):
the rostrum, but that grows really long, like this big
unicorn horn on top of their heads that is serrated
like tiny saw, and it's bad to look at it.
It's bad so to catch up to speed. It is

(01:12:43):
like an underwater umbrella spider with big spindle legs, a
tiny triangle body, and a unicorn horn with a saw
on it. Cool, it's a nightmare. In terms of colors,
that the kind of pretty color or is. Their legs
are typically orangy red and they're dainty little pincers at

(01:13:05):
the tips of their long spind lee claws or blue
or purple ish, So yeah, kind of pretty. Other than
the shape The shape is bad. The shape looks like
you broke all the sliders in like a crab character creation,
and you just turn all the sliders up to nightmare,
like broke broke it. It's like you broke the crab.

(01:13:25):
The crab is just it's all wrong. It's legs are
there's just too much legs, too much of a weird
horn on it. Yeah, there's not a color this thing
could be that would make me feel comfortable, right right, um. Regardless,
people keep them as pets for some reason. Oh my god.

(01:13:47):
In fact, one of these videos that I'm showing you guys,
I think it is someone who owns one of these things.
And uh, thank you so much for videotaping your pet molting.
It's a great addition to YouTube. The part where you
can see it hollow its legs out of the Yeah,
that's a fun. That's a always. Molting is one of

(01:14:09):
those things like when you watch a spider malt and
it kind of peels itself out of its old exoskeleton.
It's a little unsettling. This time is a billion just
because of how long those dangle legs are. It just
keeps Yeah, like I mean, I'm you know, personifying crabs

(01:14:30):
a little too much, but like or anything that molts.
But malting feels like a very intimate thing. I don't
want it being filmed. Yeah, it feels it feels private
and personal. I generally agree, but for some reason, these
crabs to me look like perverts exhibitionists. Sure, yeah, the
crab likes it, but you know it's like it's it's

(01:14:53):
singing a little burless song, like dad just taking off.
It's very long glove. Yeah, exactly, see whatever you see,
what you see all the weirder animals. What I always

(01:15:14):
do in my head is I think of, like, what
would the voice be if this was like a Pixar animation.
And the second one, the second image that you sent
to us, because it we never get that's the closest
up we see of its actual like face, and it's
like I just imagine. I imagine like a very snooty

(01:15:37):
French guy, like the little hermit crab in a Finding Nemo.
Yeah yeah, yeah exactly, but this because his eyes are
like very I don't know. Maybe it's also these the ways.
I don't know why I always imagine crabs with cigarettes
with MIAMII long m Why is this my legs a log.

(01:16:03):
These things are hideous. I do like I do like
Daddy long legs though, yeah, yeah, I don't mind most,
but the thing is imagine it being big and then
it's scary, both the Daddy long legs and the this crab,
the triangle crab, because it's just like or sorry, not

(01:16:23):
triangle crab, the arrow head crab, because imagine this thing
just dominating the skyline. Yeah, like yeah, like it's a
misty day and you can't hear it too much because
it's like got spindly legs that when they impact the ground,
they don't actually make that much noise, but just suddenly

(01:16:46):
start to see this long silhouette of this big spindley thing.
I think I think you're thinking of the mist I
think there's the Stephen King Frank Derivant film, because I
think there is a there's a like an organism that
comes from this that's like very much looks like one

(01:17:07):
of these things. Interesting. The crab missed tell crabs, it's
all crabs, baby, I really want. I know it might
be hard to achieve this, but the kids on the
Internet they love to create new cryptids, and right now
I think like it used to be like slender Man,
but we're like over slender Man, which I get he's

(01:17:28):
old news. But and now it's like siren head um,
which is like a big spindly thing with like a
siren for a head that like does creepy siren noises,
And I love that. Could we get like a giant
terrestrial spind lee crab cryptid going going in the get

(01:17:49):
that going in the chest? That is because anything that like,
I mean, that was the creepy thing about any of
these crabs with really long legs, like anything that you
imagine like just reaching out and slowly like touching you right,
The feel the feel of its leg on your skin
is not a good imagination station, to be honest. And

(01:18:09):
like whenever you see those like super long legs, it's
all I can think of it, Like it just slowly
reaching out and like touching your face very chently, right
in a sort of slow smooth motion, like because jerky
jerky emotions can be creepy, but somehow, like slow spindly
emotions can also be really creepy. Yeah, it is worse,
I think, I agree. Uh So, if any of you

(01:18:31):
guys out there like are in charge of of the ghost, Internet,
ghost stories, Creepy Pasta's like, I don't know, I don't
know who runs that. I don't know who's the CEO
of Creepy Pasta. These crabs, yeah, Giarmo del Toro. Actually
google Arrowhead Crab or check out the link of a

(01:18:52):
picture that I've included in the show notes, and please
turn that one into it because it haunts my dreams.
Get all these crabs. I'm scared of one like crawling,
like feeling a tickle in my throat and then this
thing just crawls out of my phone. Awful. Yeah you
have cool dreams. Yeah, yeah, it's really great. Yeah, those

(01:19:16):
are for you, though I don't want them. Yeah. I thought.
I hope that the universe been arcs towards crab, Like
if we all become crab form someday, I hope it
is in the shape of like YETI crab, or Christmas
Island crab for Halloween crab, one of those little cuties
and not the Arrowhead crab. Please. Yeah. I couldn't live

(01:19:39):
with myself, but I am like pretty Jack, so I
am worried I'm going to be a coconut crab. I
think if Okay, so let's let's talk about what our
crab sonas would be. Bridge coconut crab, pretty big and imposing.
I feel abe you would be the Halloween crab. Yeah,
I'd be the Halloween crab. I was going I was

(01:20:01):
feeling the porcelain crab or the little porcelain crab is
good too, Yeah, like the mud the little muddy one.
Oh yeah, you're totally right, little stone. I take it back.
You are definitely the stone crab, the hairy stone crab,
the hairy stone crab. What crab do you guys think
I would be? I I think it's the happy Face

(01:20:23):
happy the happy face yet a crab, but have crabs
some of them were crabs, but this was definitively a spider.
But yeah, not a crab. But I guess I still
appreciate being the happy face spider. Uh yeah, yeah, because
I've always I've always thought of you is like you

(01:20:45):
have a very cheery persona, but I am constantly scared
you're going to eat me. Well, yeah, I'm going to
give you a flower spider crab. Oh right right, the
yeah flower spider crab again, a spider. I like, how
you you can't be a crab because you are definitely
a billion spiders in a people's suit, which you know

(01:21:06):
I won't argue against it. I think at this point
everyone already knows. But yeah, no, I'm I'm flattered with
both of those. Actually, I love, I love. I do
think I have like a friendly aura. And then but
you're also a little worried because then I keep getting
arms keep coming out. Look what I like about the
flower spreader crab. It also has like the ends are red,

(01:21:29):
so it's like your your red hair right exactly, my
my beguiling red hair, and then my horrible chills array exactly. Look,
none of these are good. Well we've done it. We've
become crab as the universe wants us to be. Apparently
like orders stored right, I know that they're like, oh,

(01:21:50):
the universe entropy is the ultimate, uh destination of the universe.
I disagree. I think crab crab crab is the ultimate.
It's like Stephen Hawking is like the universe is going
to cool down and spread out. I think the universe
is gonna crab out. To be honest, h G Well said,

(01:22:11):
it's just gonna be all horseshoe crabs. So it's gonna
be all all horseshoe crabs. It's gonna crops all gonna
live on. We're gonna be We're gonna live on crabs.
We will be crabs and we will breathe crabs. I
for one, we'll clack for my crab claws. Look, I

(01:22:32):
would go to the party I lived with the millions
and millions of crabs. Oh yeah, hinch me, I must
be dreaming. Yeah, oh man, they hear that way too often. Yeah,
they're saying, they're like, what else you got? Yeah, well, guys,
thank you so much for joining me for this very
special crab crab Crabbyween Halloween crass Crabby Thank you. Okay,

(01:22:59):
thank your treat treat. I know it's a I know
it's a weird Halloween for everyone, So I feel like
creating this new tradition of crabby ween. You know it works.
Here we go. It works. We're gonna we're gonna roll
with it and we're gonna see where it goes. We're
gonna celebrate the crab this Halloween. Um, yeah, thank you
so much for joining me. Do you guys have anything

(01:23:21):
to plug? Yeah, we're actually a part of the same.
Like I guess supergroup is that what do we call ourselves? Oh,
I I like super Bean Team, the Bean Team. I
was just gonna say on network, but supergroup sounds better.
I also like Bean Team. I know that that's my
thing that I call you, but I kind of keep
on us saying it. Yeah, we both have our own shows,

(01:23:45):
multiple shows. Actually. Uh, there's Michael Swain, Adam ganz er
other names um that are tied to it. Uh. You
can find us set I mean small Beans wherever you
find podcast or Patreon, dot com, dot com slash, small
Beans is usually where you kick around with us. So

(01:24:05):
that's why I call them. That's why I called them
the Bean Team because their their network is called the
Small Beans Network. Yeah, yeah, yeah, check it out. We
have podcasts on there and we're just as fun. Yeah,
we're chill. We talked movies and music and like, for example,
Bridget does rough stuff. Is I just we just had

(01:24:27):
an episode of that drop just recently where her friend,
our our friend, Sarah Griffith uh talks to Bridget's parents
and asked her questions about her childhood. Bridget squirms in
the background, unable to do anything. Uh. And so it's
all the same kind of note you get here. It's

(01:24:48):
a lot of me squirming. I think I've been I've
been a guest on Rough Stuff and I talked about
how I used to eat snails as a child, and
Bridget immediately kicked me out. Yeah, immediately, Yeah you Yeah,
we gotta have you on. We're gonna have you on
a Frame Rate Katie, which is our movie podcast about
crab Let's talk out crabs, let's talk whatever. But yeah,

(01:25:09):
and I'm on Twitter at bridget tweets. Uh, and that's
where my stuff is right now. Yeah, and you can
find us at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature
feet Pod on Twitter. That's f A T not fet
knows something very different me myself. I am Katie Golden

(01:25:32):
on Twitter k A T I E G O L
D I N. Where you know you can check out
my Katie thoughts. And I'm also at pro bird Writes where, yeah,
I know that I seem like in this episode I
worshiped the crab, but I also worship the bird ultimately,
I do. I do welcome the birds as our overlords

(01:25:52):
until the crabs tell the crabs take the crown from
the birds and roll over us. Come on, and until
the crab and birds fuse to form the sort of
like flying crabs that will rule the universe, the flight Crabs. No,
not the flight Crabs. Thank you guys so much for listening.

(01:26:14):
I really appreciate it. I really hope you all have
a good October season. And uh, if you're enjoying the podcast,
if you rate and review it. First of all, I
read all of the reviews. I really appreciate it. It
warms my heart to read them, and it also helps
us out with the algorithms, so I really really appreciate

(01:26:35):
when you guys do that. Also, if you have any questions,
you can always email um Creature Feature Pod at gmail
dot com. Send me your questions. You can also like
be like hey, I want an episode about uh mice
and I'll be like yeah, why not? So yeah uh?
Or pictures of your pets always love those. And thanks

(01:26:56):
to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song. Excellent
and That Creature features a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
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the Crab that we live in right now. See you
next Wednesday or should I say Crabsday