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While digging over a driveway, some workmen I know came across (video). They were in a small, sealed chamber around 25 centimetres below the surface of the drive, which was surfaced with sand and gravel over a subsoil of pure sand and laid about 80 years ago. There have been no excavations on the site for at least 40 years. Most of the crabs are around 7 centimetres across, and a barnacle on the shell of one suggests they came from the sea. The nearest seawater is around 4 kilometres away and the sea itself considerably further. A few are now living happily in a water butt. How did they survive?

Peter-William Eaves