Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in 1937 remains one of the most persistent puzzles of the 20th century. While attempting a circumnavigation of the globe, the famed aviator and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the Pacific Ocean. The official conclusion was that their plane ran out of fuel and was lost at sea. This narrative is challenged by an alternative theory suggesting the pair survived a landing on a remote island, introducing the coconut crab as a biological element to the mystery.
The Nikumaroro Hypothesis
The leading alternative theory proposes that Earhart and Noonan did not perish at sea but instead made an emergency landing on an uninhabited coral atoll then known as Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, located in the Republic of Kiribati. Proponents of this idea, particularly The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), suggest the Lockheed Electra plane landed on a flat, exposed reef shelf near the wreckage of a freighter. They theorize that the crew survived for a period, sending out faint radio distress calls that were sporadically heard before the aircraft was eventually washed into the deep ocean by rising tides or storms.
Expeditions to Nikumaroro have recovered several ambiguous artifacts that support a castaway scenario, though none definitively prove Earhart’s presence. These finds include remnants of a woman’s size-nine shoe heel, a piece of clear Plexiglass, and fragments of cosmetic jars dating to the 1930s. The discovery of these items in the area where human remains were later found suggests a temporary encampment. The hypothesis gained further traction with the discovery of records detailing a partial human skeleton found on the island in 1940. This discovery required an explanation for why a full skeleton was not found, which led directly to the involvement of the island’s most formidable resident.
Coconut Crab Scavenging
The theory that human remains were scattered by local fauna centers on the coconut crab, Birgus latro, the world’s largest terrestrial arthropod. These powerful land crabs are omnivorous scavengers known for their immense size, with some adults reaching three feet in leg span and weighing up to nine pounds. Their massive claws are strong enough to crack open coconuts, a feat that translates into the capability of dismembering and consuming carrion.
The scattering mechanism was first mentioned in a 1940 telegram from the colonial officer who recovered the bones, stating that “All small bones have been removed by giant coconut crabs.” Researchers later conducted experiments using the remains of a pig and a lamb shoulder on Nikumaroro to simulate the process of scavenging. The results showed that not only the meat but also the bones were rapidly disarticulated and carried off from the original site. The crabs were observed to drag the bones into their burrows or up into trees, removing them from the surface where they might have been easily found. This behavior provided a plausible explanation for why only a partial, scattered set of remains was recovered, as the crabs systematically removed smaller bones like hands, feet, and vertebrae.
Scientific Consensus and Rebuttals
The partial bones recovered in 1940 were sent to Dr. D.W. Hoodless in Fiji for analysis. Hoodless, a principal at the Central Medical School, concluded in 1941 that the remains belonged to a “stocky, middle-aged male.” This initial forensic assessment dismissed any link to Amelia Earhart, and the bones were subsequently lost. For decades, the case rested on Hoodless’s finding, which was based on the rudimentary forensic osteology techniques available at the time.
The scientific status of the Nikumaroro remains shifted dramatically when forensic anthropologist Richard Jantz re-examined Hoodless’s original measurements in 2018. Jantz applied modern quantitative techniques, including a computer program called Fordisc, to estimate sex, stature, and ancestry from the seven available bone measurements. His re-analysis concluded that the skeletal dimensions were “entirely consistent” with a female of Earhart’s height and build, and statistically more similar to Earhart than 99% of the individuals in a large reference sample.
The scientific community is not in full agreement with Jantz’s conclusion. Critics argue that Hoodless was a qualified professional for his era, and that re-evaluating an unknown skeleton based solely on a few historical measurements is inherently unreliable. The crab theory remains in limbo because the biological mechanism explaining the missing remains is plausible, but the primary evidence—the bones—is unavailable for definitive modern DNA or morphological testing. The Nikumaroro hypothesis remains a heavily debated, yet scientifically supported, potential answer to the aviation mystery.