The Spectacle of the Horseshoe Crab
Oh, baby. After more than a week off the blog, we are back, bringing you one of the craziest animals on Earth today. The Horseshoe Crab. While quite common in the areas we clean (Bronx, Lower Westchester, etc.) Horseshoe crabs look like they belong in an exhibit in a Jurassic Park movie. These bad boys are considered by the scientific community to have originated a cool 244 million years ago basically without evolving — what some experts call “A living fossil.” Fancy terminology, but without further ado:
Feast your eyes on the mostly intact shell of one of these jawnsons found at Ferry Point Park. Yep. Looks like a living fossil to me. This one, I think, was an actually dead crab, given that its legs and everything were still around underneath. Far more often, you find just an empty shell — because, like snakes, they molt periodically. Looks like a component of an armor piece in Skyrim or some nonsense. If you live near shallow coastal waters with soft/sandy/muddy bottoms you just might find these things locally. Lots of shells this time of year too as they spawn during high tide in the spring. We just might be in prime season as these words are penned (typed.) They can even live for up to 20 years, which seems a little long for similar types of animal according to my nonscientific brain.
Now here’s the craziest part. Horseshoe crab blood is wildly valuable. In fact, one of the biggest threats to horseshoe crab populations on our beautiful planet Earth is that the blood is so expensive. Dudes out there are tryna find horseshoe crabs and harness their blood. The stuff is so valuable because a component in it can mimic the function of white blood cells in vertebrates, making it useful for science nerds to do important tests. Now, theoretically, people (vampires) on the search for this blood can do this by harvesting their blood and then releasing them back into the ocean. In theory the crabs should survive this. However, not all do, and female horseshoe crabs lay less eggs after being harvested. The whole thing reeks of Count Dracula vibes. Very bizarre, not a fan. This doesn’t even get into the theory that some companies, instead of releasing the crabs back into the ocean, sell them as fishing bait. I’m not saying this is some grand conspiracy, but I’m not saying it’s not.
These are all the words I have for you on our prehistoric seafaring friends today, but I thought it was important to shed some light on these cool creatures. Particularly when my TikToks of them routinely pop off for 10k+ views. Gotta give back and spread awareness. To check out even more of our nature content or support, hit up theregrowthproject on Instagram or head to theregrowthproject.com. Catch you next blog.
