LAND CRAB

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to spot a crab on the road from Café Blue to the studio. It was another of those instances where you just stumble upon something. I find these instances unexpected, interesting and enjoyable. Like most people, I do not usually associate crabs with the rainforest. We tend to think of these creatures as coastal dwellers. But there she was walking along the edge of the road at 3,000+ feet above sea level with the coast an hour away.

I am rather confident that the crab is a female because she was carrying a lot of babies. The babies were mostly hidden on her underside but several were taking a ride on her back. When she stopped several of the babies scattered. I was lucky enough to have been carrying my camera and took a few good shots of the mother and the babies. She was approximately 4 inches wide and the babies were ½ inch wide.

The last time that we saw a land crab at Monte Azul was when we were building the studio in 2006. One night Carlos kept hearing a strange clicking noise. When he went to investigate the noise was a crab that managed to get between the wall and a sheet of plexiglass. It was trying to get out of this situation and kept hitting its front arms on the plexiglass. I guess you just never know when or where you may run into a land crab.