Millions of crabs paint Christmas Island red

Millions of red crabs have started the long crawl marking their annual migration to the coast of Christmas Island. The migration begins when the first rains start during the wet season in Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

It takes months of preparation each year for the employees of the Christmas Island National Park to put in place miles of road barriers and signs to make sure the crabs go over specially built bridges. The speed of the migration depends on the phase of the moon. The crabs move in huge numbers from their forest home to the sea.

Parks Australia expects the spawning to take place around the end of the month. Each female crab can release up to 100,000 eggs into the ocean. It is expected the resulting baby crabs will return to the shore a month later and make their way back to the forest.