Flexi Says: Coconut crabs mate on dry land during summer. During the courtship ritual, male and the female appear to fight with each other, and the male eventually turns the female on her back to mate. After mating, the female crab lays her eggs and sticks them to the underside of her abdomen. She carries the fertilized eggs underneath her body for a few months. When the eggs are ready to hatch in fall, the female coconut crab releases the eggs into the ocean at high tide. These larvae are called zoeas. By some reports, all of the egg-carrying females in a coconut crab population do this on the same night.
