Millions of Red Crabs Take Over Christmas Island's Roads and Homes as Annual Migration Begins 

Christmas Island is officially crawling with crabs.

On the Australian territory off the southern coast of Indonesia, this year's red crab migration is underway, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Christmas Island National Park. The annual phenomenon sees millions of crimson-red crustaceans clattering across roads from their forest dwellings to the island's shores to spawn their eggs. Usually, the mass migration heavily impacts regular human activity across Christmas Island.

Footage captured by ABC shows a small road completely overrun by red crabs, slowly but surely all heading in the same direction towards the sea. During the migration, no space is off limits to the crabs, ABC reported, including busy streets and people's homes.

To accommodate the crabs' safe journey to the sea, Christmas Island residents typically keep rakes and leaf blowers in their cars to help the crustaceans on their way, the outlet reported.

"Everyone here really values the crabs, and [the migration] is seen as a real treat," Alexia Jankowski, Christmas Island National Park's acting manager, told ABC. She added that many residents try to avoid driving during the early morning and late afternoons to give the crabs "freedom" during this important time.

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The migration is kicked off by the island's first rainfall of the wet season, which is usually in October or November but can be as late as January, per the National Park's site.

The crabs' migration is dictated by the moon and the tides, according to the park. The crabs consistently spawn eggs "before dawn on a receding high-tide during the last quarter of the moon," which the creatures somehow interpret each year.

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Since the early 2000s, the crab population on Christmas Island has nearly doubled, from 55 million to an estimated 100 million now, said Brendon Tiernan, the National Park's threatened species coordinator, per ABC. Since the relatively recent introduction of a microwasp reduced the yellow crazy ant threat to the crabs, the crab population has "skyrocketed" and seen "incredible returns of baby crabs."

The red crab larvae will hatch as soon as their eggs make contact with the water, per the National Park, at which time they're carried out to sea. In the next month, the larvae go through various stages, during which most will not survive, as they are prey to fish, manta rays, and whale sharks.

After about a month, they emerge from the water as baby crabs, about five millimeters in width. Most years, very few baby crabs emerge, but occasionally a huge number survive, maintaining the island's population.