Baby red crabs have infested the Cayman Islands by the hundreds of thousands, in an unusually heavy migration season that has caused havoc. If local superstition is any indicator, the Caribbean may face a rough hurricane season. <\/p>\n
The crabs have scurried on past the immediate coast, onto roads, residents' yards, climbing up homes and scratching their way into homes. Most are infesting two of the three islands, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. <\/p>\n
\"People living in the coast will have them everywhere,\" Tim Austin, deputy director of the Cayman Islands' Environment Department, told the AP. \"They get in houses, into your AC system. Anywhere there's a gap, they'll find it. They're trying to get somewhere where they'll live happily.\" <\/p>\n
Austin believes low tides and the recent \"supermoon\" combined to make life easier for the baby red crabs, allowing more of them to reach land. <\/p>\n
The crabs' red hue is misleading, as the creatures climb ashore after they're born and lay low in forests and wetlands until they grow and reproduce, heading back into the water as a large black land crab seeking to deposit their eggs. <\/p>\n
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The creatures grow from the size of about a thumbnail to nearly a foot in some cases. Fully grown crabs can scamper at up to six feet per second, have been known to claw at the tires of passing cars. <\/p>\n
Locals colloquially call them \"Hurricane Crabs\" because a superstition connects their presence to a particularly bad hurricane season. <\/p>\n
Baby red crabs, up to the size of a thumbnail, have climbed up windows and into AC units, among other places. <\/p>\n
\"There's a very strong feeling on the island that they relate to the arrival of a hurricane,\" District Commissioner Ernie Scott of Cayman Brac told the Cayman Compass. He added: \"I've seen them here in hurricane seasons when we didn't have any hurricanes and I've seen them in a season where we've experienced hurricanes.\" <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Baby Red Crabs Invade Cayman Islands, Could Signal Tough Hurricane Season<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Baby red crabs have infested the Cayman Islands by the hundreds of thousands, in an unusually heavy migration season that has caused havoc. If local superstition is any indicator, the Caribbean may face a rough hurricane season Continue reading