A genuine source of
fascination can be found in the study of genetics. Why do some species use an
innate, pre-programmed genetic structure to survive yet other species,
including humans, need to be taught how to survive?
Now this might sound boring but please
stay with me a minute and you’ll be surprised.
One of the most amazing animals on earth
is the Coconut Crab. It is the world’s largest land-based arthropod. It
breathes via primitive lungs and will drown in water.
It can live for 50 years and will eat
just about anything but prefers coconuts which it will climb a tree to
retrieve. Fully grown it can weigh up to 5 kilograms.
While carrying out search and rescue stuff
for the Vanuatu Government I collected Coconut Crabs from outer islands to sell
to local restaurants to supplement the cost of helicopter fuel.
I had made many friends in the northern
islands, many of whom still practise cannibalism.
Anyway these crabs, when first born,
adopt the hermit crab practice of living in a shell for protection and I wanted
to know if they learnt from older crabs how to survive or whether they already
knew what a coconut palm was without ever having seen one.
So I cleaned an empty 44 gallon fuel
drum, removed the base, and buried it half-deep in the ground and placed a
number of new-born baby crabs inside. They could not escape the drum and could
see nothing but the sky and each other.
The natives agreed to
feed them on everything except coconuts.
Now, a baby human’s innate instinct
extends to sucking and grasping, everything else is an education process gained
from older humans. It’s the same with most species.
So is a paedophile pre-programmed to
sexually desire little children or does he cultivate the aberrant urge?
It’s possible, during incarceration, to
rehabilitate a burglar or even a drug addict. He can learn a better way to
survive life.
But when a paedophile is incarcerated
there can be no rehabilitation. As soon as he is released he will again return
to searching out his prey. His vile, sociopathic compulsion to sexually destroy
a child's innocence can be suppressed for a period but the unrequited, unsatisfied
urge lives on.
So what about these crabs? Well, after
two years we released them and watched while they headed up the nearest palm
tree and started gnawing at the coconut stems.
When the coconuts fell to the
ground the crabs climbed down from the tree and started tearing them apart.
Is the rock spider related to the
Coconut Crab? (Pickering Post)
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