Tuvalu: Tepuka Islet
The third and last island we visited in the Funafuti Atoll Conservation Area was Tepuka. It is largest of the uninhabited islands and consequently took good 40 min to run around (the boat almost left without me). Unlike the previous tiny islands, this one had a bone fide jungle of coconut trees in the middle. More interestingly, coconut crabs (largest land crab in the world) inhabit this island, and I found two baby ones! Juvenile coconut crabs behave similarly to hermit crabs and usually find a shell to hide their vulnerable immature body. However, on this small island there were no large shells for them, so they used human plastic trash as a makeshift house (I guess you can call then trailer trash crabs, they also probably fear hurricanes)…
