12 Unnecessarily Nightmarish Creatures That Scuttled Straight Out Of Hell

Right, we've already covered the many delights of the Japanese Spider Crab, but at least that particular messenger of Beelzebub has the good grace to stay in the sea.

This abominable arthropod is land-based, therefore vastly increasing the chances that it will scuttle into your living room.

The male Coconut Crab, sometimes called the robber crab due to its curious habit of nicking silverware from people's kitchens, can have a leg span of over three feet, weigh more than half a stone and gets its name from its ability to tear into coconuts as though they were made out of paper mache.

Like lots of creatures with exoskeletons, the Coconut Crab will shed its hard outer armour as it grows. This makes it very vulnerable so, in order to speed up the process of growing a new one, the crab will eat its own shell and extrude the nutrients into its new one.

Whilst the crabs probably won't take a chunk out of a human, they have been known to eat everything from fruit to other crabs and even (gulp) kittens.

However, the Coconut Crab has seen a decline in numbers over recent years due to humans messing around with their natural environments and building roads across their migration routes. However much you'd hate to find one crawling through your window, that's never good, and efforts are beginning to be made to save these gentle giants.