Commentary to biodiversity and conservation Upgrading Birgus: lessons for invertebrate conservation

Coconut crabs Birgus latro have recently been reclassified from Data Deficient to Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. This is a somewhat unusual case of temporal and spatial information being used to change the IUCN status of an arthropod and it draws attention to the paucity of biological data on most invertebrate species. To be listed, two or more scientific criteria need to be documented but such data are unavailable for many invertebrates. This raises the question as to whether certain invertebrates receive more scientific attention and are hence more likely to be listed if, like the coconut crab, they are large, slow-reproducing or a dual-biome species (characteristics which make them inherently vulnerable) and whether being an indicator or a flagship species is important.