Giant crabs raid a family's barbecue: they were attracted by the smell of the food

When we organize a nice picnic in the open air with friends and relatives complete with a barbecue where we can cook good food with friends, we would never expect our evening of relaxation and fun to be ruined by unexpected and decidedly unwanted guests. Kind of like what happened to this Australian family some time ago when they were enjoying an evening barbecue with friends, when a colony of giant crabs raided their picnic!

via Christmas Island Tourism/Facebook

It looks like a scene from a horror movie, but it's not; everything you are about to see in these incredible images happened some time ago in an area of the Christmas Island in Australia, one of the most famous areas of the planet for their colonies of crustaceans - especially red crabs and large coconut crabs. The latter, typical and endemic to the Australian continent, are very large - so much so that they are often renamed "giant crabs" or even "robber crabs". They have an extraordinarily developed sense of smell that can reach up to a meter away. But then, why are these crabs called "robbers"?

Because of their highly developed sense of smell, dozens and dozens of these crustaceans can move, en masse, if they smell out food which is attractive for them. And it is for this reason that the incredible and bizzare photos posted on Facebook's Christmas Island Tourism page really seems to come from a movie. But they are not from a movie and are instead depicting the reality of an Australian family who had organized an evening barbecue in an area of the Christmas Island. Coconut crabs are generally harmless to humans, but certainly the sight of a huge colony of the crustaceans taking possession of chairs and tables to steal food is certainly not reassuring for everyone...

The amusing part of this story is that this Australian family was forced not only to hide all their food so as not to further attract the coconut crabs, but they also had to take time to "accompany" these unexpected guests away from their barbecue: "We've been camping many times in that part of Christmas Island, but we have never seen so many coconut crabs surrounding us and our food: what a scene! "

In short, a truly bizzare moment that we are sure this family will not easily forget!