A Tradition of Terrestriality: Population Biology Ph.D. Student Victoria Morgan Journeys Among Land Crabs
Christmas Island is alive with crabs. The 52-square-mile island, located roughly 270 miles from the Indonesian island of Java, is home to the Christmas Island red crab. Every year, millions upon millions of these land crabs click-clack across the jungle floor on a journey to spawn near the ocean. The scarlet spectacle is the stuff of breathtaking wildlife documentaries, but it’s just a taste of the island’s biodiversity.
“A lot of people call it the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean, just because it’s so biologically interesting,” said Victoria Morgan, a Population Biology Ph.D. student. “You’ll go into the forest and it’ll just be scuttling with crabs, especially after the rains. It’s just so alive and rich and vibrant and lush and wild in a way that I hadn’t experienced before.”
In summer 2017, Morgan traveled to Christmas Island on a fieldwork expedition. She was fascinated by the breadth of the island’s land crab species.