Creature Features

Garrett recently celebrated the end of his first year of PhD classes. Woohoo! Or should I say, "Hoot hoot!"? For the Statistics Department's end-of-year party, Garrett's friend and officemate Beth made owl cupcakes to honor Rice's mascot.

Giddy with extra time in his schedule, Garrett recently researched in depth the 1937 disappearance of Amelia Earhart. One theory postulates that she and her companion landed on a deserted island (or, more specifically, atoll) in the South Pacific. The island is home to an amazing and disturbing species called the coconut crab.

It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world! They climb coconut trees to eat coconuts! Imagine poor Amelia, straggling onto an island, only to find monster crabs sipping pina coladas.