Unlike ocean crabs, which eat various fish parts and algae, the Halloween crab is described as largely herbivorous, eating leaf litter and other plant-based foods. There’s even some suggestion that these crabs' leaf-eating and burrowing habits may be good for the soil around them, that they may "facilitate, over months or years, the movement of nutrients to deeper soils where roots may subsequently forage," writes Peter Sherman, a systems ecologist who studies tropical lowland rainforests.

But of course, you might be wondering if this exotic coastal rain forest crab is poisonous, as some brightly colored species are. The consensus is that they’re generally harmless. Their benignness is all the more remarkable when you consider all of the other species in the region that are not — the venomous snakes, hungry crocodiles, creepy arachnids, stinging scorpions, and poison-dart frogs. After a couple days in Nosara, I was happy to wake up in the morning and find only a Halloween crab waiting for me in the sneakers I left outside.

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