It is believed crazy ants were first introduced to the island in the early 20th century by a visiting ship.
But their rapid explosion into destructive supercolonies 30 years ago — for reasons scientists do not fully understand — triggered a decline in red crabs.
Crabs wandering through a supercolony of ants during the migration are quickly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the insects.
Their deaths are unpleasant: first the ants spray acid into the crabs' eyes to blind them, and then into their joints to immobilise them.
Authorities feared that without intervention, the crabs would face extinction in the wild, a fate already shared by other island species like the blue-tailed skink.
I remember as a kid watching documentaries about the Christmas island crabs and how cool and bizarre the whole thing looked, Nice to see that we as humans are actually attempting to un fuck the mess we made.
Caleb Smith
Huh? Hadn't you heard? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Usually, the more people try to 'help' (or 'unfuck' things) the more fucked up everything gets.
Number One: you're full of shit Number Two: Killcen is a good man Number Three: he is NOT a pedophile Number Four: you're taking this too far and this is not what Jim is paying you to do.
…….. also I don't appreciate you trying to copy my style and play mind games with him because he's actually a friend of mine believe it or not….
We were chosen to disrupt and slide
what you're doing is uncool
Colton Reyes
keep it up, and ill tell Ron to have Jim fire your ass, fuckface
Kevin Walker
killcen, this is EGG ZACK LEE why I've been thinking about quitting this gig and just going back to 4chan……………………..
Why the hell do you nogs love crabs so much? They aren't that big of a deal. They are delicious but those are dead crabs.
Zachary Reyes
Between Killcen and Johnny, it's difficult to find any REAL News like this around. If they would both stop doing so much meth we could have a REAL discussion about the plight of the Christmas Island red crabs, and what we, as a human species, are going to do about our meddling. How can we meddle more? How can we keep Killcen & Johnny from mething, meddling and diddling?
Lincoln Wood
Just how tiny are they? How big are the ants? The crabs? It's all so relative. Maybe the perspective assumed in is all wrong. Inquiring minds want to know. Measurements please!
Wyatt Sanders
Arrange a real life meet up and they can have deranged meth addled muddled diddling and then cuddle. Then hopefully kill each other, or at least one of them.
Dylan Gutierrez
The Johnny Neptune Consortium (which includes Killcen) was hired by Jim to be kind of like the ant-killing wasps around here, in order to save the crab threads. So, yeah. That makes (You), the userbase, the ant-problem.
Jason Nelson
Jim has a soft spot in his shell for crabs?
Jordan Anderson
Nobody likes crab threads, only that fucking crab thread autist who is upset he can't make crab threads on newsplus.
Noah Butler
Obviously Killcen does. He has been bumping them for years now. His autistic "anti-slide" nonsense is also the primary cause. He's not wrong though. Arbitrary decisions are made about which threads get front page status, and Killcen just wishes they were all his paranoid ramblings. Well, they're not. Crab threads rarely, if ever, achieve front page status, and often get 'punished' in the Catalog by being 'slid' down the page or by being made unbumpable (yes, without anchoring), etc.. There are tools to curb an overinfestation of crabs. We have ants and wasps working overtime on this 'problem'. But crab threads are often a breath of fresh air (with a hint of salt) in a sea of Trump and Evil Tech threads. Let the crabs thrive where they may! They're not doing any harm, and they keep the overly-zealous "REAL News" bashers at bay. Someone needs to get up under Killcen's shell once in awhile and spray a little acid on those joints! He should just accept his inner crab. We all should.
Gecko eat insects/ants. I have provided my yard’s gecko population a favorable living condition and the ants disappear as they are working/organizing (moving to and from their ant hills). The junior gecko eat the ants while the adults consume the large troublesome insects (beetles aka cockroaches) in the yard of this Florida rental home.
Brody Nguyen
I do not see a problem with this. As long as no crabs are 'sliden'.
Joseph Thompson
Actually, crabs can be sliden quite easily. Turn 'em over and you can skip 'em on the water too! Double bonus is that it gets the ants off of them too.
Has the problem been solved yet? I didn't think so. I guess we'll have to keep this before the public's attention. How to go about that? I guess we all should do our part. I can't do much, but I can bump a crab thread!
Sebastian Howard
Please don't use ableist slurs when describing ants.
Evan Jones
Ants are all retarded nigger faggots that need the gas chamber.
Leo Hall
Live footage from Christmas Island of crabs celebrating they're liberation from crazy ant oppressors!
