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December 13, 2017 3 mins

No, really, it's a serious question. In this episode, learn why -- and how -- researchers have investigated giant land crabs' potential role in the famous pilot's ultimate demise.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, there,
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. We've just never been
able to let the whole Amelia Earhart thing go, not
just us here at how Stuff Works, you know, the
population at large. This legendary pilot disappeared eighty years ago,
but we're still looking for her remains and those of
her navigator, Fred Noonan. Just this year, in an expedition

(00:25):
involving forensic dogs led by the International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery, a k A Tiger was sent to the
island in the South Pacific where her plane is thought
to have crashed. The word on the proverbial street, however,
is that air Heart's remains were probably gobbled up by
coconut crabs scientific name Burgess Latro, and some of her

(00:45):
bones subsequently hauled off to their layers. Coconut crabs are
an oversized species of hermit crab. In fact, they're the
world's largest land dwelling arthropod. These monsters can weigh up
to nine pounds or four kims and normally eat coconuts, obviously,
but we'll also snack on other available fruits, nuts, and leaves.
They've also been known to enjoy a little meat from

(01:07):
time to time. Your average coconut crab probably wouldn't turn
its nose carapass up at a live rat, should the
roadent be unlucky enough to fall into its hole. The
crabs also have an excellent sense of smell for hunting
out their next meal. Depending on who you talk to,
the mystery around Earhart's disappearance can get really complicated, really quickly.
What is known is that on July two seven, during

(01:30):
their attempt to circumnavigate the Earth by plane, Earhart and
Noonan took off from Lay, New Guinea headed for Holland
Island in the South Pacific. Unfortunately, they never made it.
The last position they reported was near the Numanu Islands,
fifty miles that's about five hundred and sixty kilometers to
the southeast. In nineteen forty a British officer named Gerard
Gallagher found a partial human skeleton and a sextant box

(01:52):
on an island called Nikoma ro Ro in the Republic
of care body basically the exact location of her last transmission.
Other items age are freckle, ointment and the rubber sole
of a shoe were found later. The skeletal remains found
by Gallagher were somehow lost, but not before a physician
named David Hoodless took measurements. A group of doctors reviewed

(02:13):
the notes of both Gallagher and Hoodless and decided the
bones belonged to a tall female of European descent. It
was Gallagher who first speculated that the smaller bones of
the skeleton found on Nicomorro must have been hauled away
by coconut crabs. The animals are large and voracious, and
he seems to have gotten the idea from the locals,
who are basically like, Yeah, coconut crabs hallway human bones

(02:33):
all the time. However, a seven experiment run by Tiger
attempted to see if coconut crabs might haul away the
bones of a pig carcass, and although many of them
came to feed on it, no large bones were lugged
off into the forest. So though it's possible Amelia Earhart
was eaten and her bones dispersed by coconut crabs, nobody
really knows for now. Today's episode was written by Jesselyn

(03:01):
Shields and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this
and lots of other Cretaceous topics. Visit our home Planet
House to works dot com

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