Marching with the Red Crabs of Christmas Island

Christmas Island sits in the Indian Ocean, a few hours by air from Perth, Australia. Each wet season, more than a hundred million red crabs pour from the forest and march to the sea to spawn, turning roads, beaches and gardens into moving red carpets. At dawn on spawning mornings, the females release their eggs into the surf as the tide turns. The migration runs roughly October through December, timed to the first heavy rains and the lunar cycle.