We ’ve just never been able to let the wholeAmelia Earhartthing go . The legendary pilot film disappear 80 years ago , but we ’re still bet for her remains ( and those of her navigator Fred Noonan ) . Just this year anexpedition take forensic mush byThe International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery ( TIGHAR)were send to the island in the South Pacific where her plane is thought to have crashed .
The parole on the street , however , is that Earhart ’s cadaver were probably gobble up bycoconut crabs(Birgus latro ) , and some of her off-white later on hauled off to their den . Coconut crabs are an outsized species of hermit crabmeat — in fact , they ’re theworld ’s big country - dwelling arthropod . These monsters can weigh up to 9 Egyptian pound ( 4 kilo ) , and normally eat coconuts , plain , but will also snack on other available fruit , nuts and leaves . They have also been get it on to enjoy a little carrion from meter to time — your average coconut crab probably would n’t turn its carapace up at alive lowlife , should the rodent be unlucky enough to fall into its hole . The crabs also have anexcellent sense of smellfor hunt out their next repast .
depend on who you sing to , the mystery around Earhart ’s disappearance can get really complicated , really chop-chop . However , what ’s know is that , on July 2 , 1937 , during their seek to circumnavigate the Earth by plane , Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae , New Guinea , headed for Howland Island in the South Pacific . Unfortunately , they never made it — the last side they report was near the Nukumanu island , 350 sea mile ( 560 km ) to the southeastern United States .
In 1940 , a British officer discover Gerard Gallagher found a partial human skeletal frame and a sextant box on an island call Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati , basically the accurate location of her last infection . Other items — a jarful of freckle ointment and the rubber sole of a shoe — were found later . The skeletal remains found by Gallagher were somehow lost , but not before aphysician list David Hoodlesstook measurements . In 1998 , a group of doctors reviewed the notes of both Gallagher and Hoodless , and decided the bones go to a tall female person of European descent .
It was Gallagher who first speculated that the smaller bones of the skeletal system found on Nikumaroro must have been haul away by coconut Phthirius pubis – the animalsarelarge and voracious , and he seems to have gotten the approximation from the locals who were basically like " yeah , coconut crabs haul off human bones all the metre . "
However , a2007 experimentrun by TIGHAR attempted to see if coconut crab might cart by the bone of a bull carcase , and although many of them came and flow on it , no large bones were tug off into the wood .
So , though it ’s potential Amelia Earhart was eat and her bones dispersed by coconut crabs , nobody really knows . permit ’s hope , for her sake , she ’s peacefully at rest at the bottom of the Pacific and did n’t adjoin her demise at the claws of a gang of hungry arthropods .
