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Brave Aussie takes photo with terrifyingly huge coconut crab

[Mark Pierrot poses with a giant coconut crab on Christmas Island. Photo via Paris Match]

Australia is notorious for its scary variety of local wildlife, but wait till you get a look at the coconut crabs that roam around its Christmas Island territory.

A photo of Mark Pierrot holding one of the deadly creatures has gone viral. Pierrot, who grew up on the island, stands proudly grasping the massive crustacean. In a feat that would likely scare most people, he uses both hands to display the huge the crab’s huge pincers, according to the Huffington Post.

Pierrot happened upon a cluster of them on the island, and obviously thought it was a perfect moment to pick one up and smile for the camera.

“They look scary but are gentle giants, really,” Pierrot wrote in an email to Huffington Post. “To get nipped by one you have to be pretty slow.”

The world’s largest arthropods are a protected species which gather in large numbers on the island in the Indian Ocean, allowing the species to live to a fruitful age of 70, according to the island’s tourism association.

Linda Cash, Christmas Island’s marketing manager, told Metro.co.uk that coconut crabs are known to make off with items like “shovels, drills and food.” That may be why they’re also known as robber crabs.

A 2012 theory suggests the creatures even made off with Amelia Earhart’s body when she went missing on her 1937 round-the-world flight, according to Discovery.com.

Pierrot, meanwhile, thinks it’s “funny” that the crabs are so feared, the Huffington Post reports.

“I can see how people would find them creepy, but they are pretty timid creatures,” he said.