How scientists protect red crabs when Christmas is in danger

One way to protect the red crabs is especially frightening, but necessary.

Located in Western Australia, 2600km from the coast, there is an island with an extremely impressive name: Christmas Island - also known as Christmas Island. And on this island there are red crabs - an extremely famous species of land crab in the world, when creating migrations of up to millions.

Newly hatched red crabs, crawling cows are extremely fascinating scenes at Christmas Island.

But the population of red crabs on Chirstmas Island is severely declining. And the reason comes from the aggression of an extremely aggressive gold ant. They secrete an extremely strong acid to mark the territory, and that accidentally caused the red crab to suffer.

It is estimated that there were about 40-50 million red crabs previously lived on Chirstmas Island. However, the population of this crab has decreased by 40% in the last 15 years due to being attacked by weaver ants.

Scientists have yet to find the origin of this golden ant, however, they are ranked among the top 100 most aggressive invasive species on the list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This ant is nicknamed "crazy", and they are expanding their territory throughout Asia-Pacific.

Gold ants - the culprit makes red crab suffer.

According to experts, "crazy" ants appeared on Chirstmas Island through commercial travel by ship in the early 20th century. By the early 1990s, the population of ants on the island began to explode, turning This place became one of their top colonies.

This species of ants often secretes acid everywhere when they are in danger. This is a highly toxic liquid that can cause blindness, paralysis and mass death of red crabs.

Red crab is attacked by red ants.

Currently, this ant species is mastering a land area of ​​2500 hectares with a density of 1,000 individuals / m2. Scientists must take necessary measures to conserve other species living on Chirstmas Island.

And they do it in an extremely . horror way

Researchers from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia decided that "poisoning" these ants would not be an effective way. Instead, they seek a natural enemy of this "crazy" ant.

The bumblebees will come to arrest and lay eggs inside their bodies.

They found that there is a species of bumblebee in Malaysia that is capable of destroying insects that produce bile, which is the daily food of "crazy" ants. But there is no way to "gobble up" , this 2-inch-long, unnamed bee will come to seize and lay eggs inside their bodies.

The ants after laying eggs are basically dead. They only exist as zombies . waiting for the larvae to hatch to become food sources to help bees grow.

Scientists have put bees on Chirstmas Island in the middle of the land of "crazy" ants. While the impact of this action on the "crazy " species has not yet been assessed, scientists hope that when the population of the bee population increases, the number of red crabs will increase again as the original landmark in. the next two decades.

Red crab on Christmas island.

"The colony of ants is abolished and the Chirstmas island will be returned to its inherent owner," declared La Trobe University scientists confidently.