Christmas Island Crabs Ants

Red crabs make an important contribution to the health of christmas island s rainforests by eating their way through tons of leaf litter and returning vital nutrients to the soil.

Christmas island crabs ants. To reduce the impacts of crazy ants on red crabs and christmas island s ecosystems the parks australia carried out a major aerial baiting program in 2009 to follow up the first aerial baiting conducted in 2002. Crazy ants have wiped out an estimated 40 million red crabs from christmas island since the early 1990s supplied. These may be the largest land dwelling arthropod the group that insects and crustaceans belong to on earth. The super colonies of ants dominate over 2 500 hectares of christmas island s.

Crazy ants spray formic acid when threatened a corrosive liquid that can blind incapacitate and kill red crabs. Csiro parks staff worked with a team led by dr peter green a red crab expert. The first step was conducting an extensive island wide survey to determine the exact locations of the supercolonies. The death of the red crab.

The christmas island red crab gecarcoidea natalis is a species of land crab that is endemic to christmas island and cocos keeling islands in the indian ocean. Ants are killing christmas island s iconic red crabs by the millions. One of the saddest sights to see on christmas island is a sea of dead red crabs on the. Could tiny wasps save the day.

Christmas island has many other species of crabs including the impressive robber crabs these may be the largest land dwelling arthropod the group that insects and crustaceans belong to on earth. Since the late 1990s the invasive ants have killed tens of millions of land crabs. It s a pretty slow miserable death says hoffman. As acid soaks into soft gill tissue breathing slowly becomes impossible.

Since the 1990s crazy ant super colonies have killed millions of our precious red crabs. But most sinister for crabs is the spray s effect on gills. That s terrible news for our crabs but it s bad for many other species too. The crazy ants of christmas island wipe out everything on their path.

Although restricted to a relatively small area an estimated 43 7 million adult red crabs once lived on christmas island alone but the accidental introduction of the yellow crazy ant is believed to have killed about 10 15 million.