In terms of size, King crab legs—which we’ve always considered massive—having nothing on coconut crab legs. According to the Huffington Post, the coconut crab (also known as the robber crab) can grow to be three-feet-long, or larger than a small child. They are the “largest land-living arthropods” in the world and can well over 10 pounds.
Mark Pierrot, a resident of Australia who posed with one of the massive crabs after encountering a cluster of them on Christmas Island, tells the Huffington Post that often you need two hands to pick up one of the crabs because they are so big and heavy. And though they are large, they are gentle, says Pierrot: “They look scary but are gentle giants, really. To get nipped by one you have to be pretty slow.”
2 Chainz’s King crab legs look wimpy in comparison to the gargantuan coconut crab. (Photo: @hairweavekiller)
The coconut crab is also a protected species. The upside to that is that they often live to be around 70 years old because they are not frequently hunted. The downside is that if you were hoping to having a massive crab boil or whip up a huge pot of beer-steamed crab legs à la 2 Chainz, there are a number of rules to abide by. In regions like Guam, it’s illegal to hunt any egg-bearing females. As for non-egg-bearing coconut crabs, people are only allowed to capture five crabs in one day, and 15 across the three-month hunting season, and only if they have a license.
[via Huffington Post]