Crabs rock!

Check out this awesome Alaskan rock formation:

Choris Peninsula, Kotzebue Sound "Crab Claw"

66 16.020 N, 161 54.520 W

It's from the Alaska ShoreZone Coastal Mapping and Imagery program, which has tasked itself with documenting geographic and biological resources along the 6,640 miles of Alaskan coastline! (That's more miles than the rest of the coastal states combined!) From the ShoreZone description of this shot: "One of the few rock outcrops in Kotzebue Sound, near the south end of the Choris Peninsula. The bedrock is resistant to erosion and stands as near vertical rock cliffs." Now that's a large claw if ever I saw one!

(If you watch this video, you can see the helicopter footage of the Crab Claw at 42:40!)

New year, new crab!

Well, kind of. Recently a woman in Honolulu noticed this guy walking down the street:

oh hey there!

Normally seeing a crab in Hawaii wouldn't be weird. But this guy is a coconut crab (remember learning about them here) and they are invasive in Hawaii. It might have just showed up for vacation, but what's more likely is that someone had bought the crab in hopes of making a tasty dinner - can you blame it for trying to run away!?!?

Just as a note, in the video (on the Huffington Post link) they keep saying how dangerous the crabs are because of their strong claws. Coconut crabs can break through coconuts and were rumored to crack skulls of sleepy castaways, but I'm not sure how dangerous they truly are. So here's the lesson: rumors will follow you, coconut crab. You may have escaped being dinner (it will now live at the Honolulu Zoo), but you can't escape the sins of your father! (Regardless, getting pinched by a small mud crab can hurt so I'd avoid these claws!)