Names
| External identifiers for Birgus latro | |
|---|---|
| Encyclopedia of Life | 2982586 |
| NCBI | 177283 |
| WoRMS | 208668 |
| Also found in: Wikispecies, SeaLifeBase | |
The coconut crab has been known to western scientists since the voyages of William Dampier around 1688. Based on an account by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1705), who had called the animal "Cancer cruentatus", Carl Linnaeus (1767) named the species Cancer latro, from the Latin latro, meaning "robber". The genus Birgus was erected in 1816 by William Elford Leach, containing only Linnaeus' Cancer latro, which was thus renamed Birgus latro. Birgus is classified in the family Coenobitidae, alongside one other genus, Coenobita, which contains the terrestrial hermit crabs.
Common names for the species include coconut crab, robber crab and palm thief, which mirrors the animal's name in other European languages (e.g. German: Palmendieb). In the Pohnpeian language of the Eastern Caroline Islands, the crab is called Emp.
Read more about this topic: Coconut Crab
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