Google 'crab view': Christmas Island covered by a tide of red crabs

Crab level view: Dr Alasdair Grigg spent last December tracking the crabs back to water Photo / Supplied

It's one of the world's most amazing, natural spectacles and it takes place on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Christmas Island's annual migration of red crabs happens in December, as 45million bright-red crustaceans crawl out of the forests and into the sea.

As the tiny island briefly turns red with crawling crabs, there is nowhere that is safe from the path of their pincers. The golfing green has even factored in a set of local rules for interruption by "robber" crabs taking your ball.

It's a migration worthy of a David Attenborough documentary.

Yet it was only ever witnessed by a handful of people. The human population is just over a thousand Christmas Islanders.

With only a few flights a week from Perth and Indonesia the easiest way to see the phenomenon was through a handful of documentary films and the work of dogged nature photographers. That is, until recently.

Last year, Google included the small Australian territory in its "street view" project - a series of 360-degree photos used to provide an eye-level view on maps.

In December "Google Earth", the tech-company's mapping division, sent a VR camera to witness the great journey and publish it online.

It was the job of Dr. Alasdair Grigg of Parks Australia to set about walking the 135 square kilometers of the island with a rig of cameras on his back. Four months later, the results have been published on google.maps for the world to see.

The invention of Google street view has been a gift to holiday planners and arm-chair travellers alike.

The Christmas Island is the latest in a series of special projects undertaken by the Google team. Previous adventures have included a journey around India's ancient temples and a tour of the Faeroe Islands, as seen by a sheep.

Interactive: track the red crabs' incredible journey

Crab Migration on Christmas Island

Follow the migration of the red crab as they emerge from the forests of Christmas Island and head to the beach to spawn.

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