Horseshoe Crab

This is a horseshoe crab. Doesn't it look kind of scary? A few years back I saw this scary looking crab on some random bands video diary.

Random band guy picked it up and said, " What is this thing!? I don't even wanna f****** know what that is! All I know is those are fangs and teeth!"

The crab scared me. Even looking at it now scares me. It might be the army helmet with spikes looking exoskeleton it has to protect it's fragile insides...


However creepy it might look, it is apparently quite harmless and endanger.

Yesterday while eating my yummy Vietnamese noodles, I was watching the Nature program on KCET entitled, 'Crash: A Tale of Two Species'.

The horseshoe crab have been living on earth since 350 million years ago. It has 10 eyes spread around its body. This includes near its mouth, on its tail, and on top of the shell.

Besides it's odd appearance, it has odd insides too, for example, it's tube-like heart. Going through the heart would be it's blue blood.

The blue blood actually is quite beneficial to humans. Scientists use an extract of the blue blood, lysate, in labs for cancer research and testing for bacterial contamination.


According to the program, a quart of the blue blood costs up to $15,000!!!

I learned that this species is endangered because it is being over fished. Fisherman's use the flesh as bait for conch and eels. The high demand for conch and eels has caused an over harvest of the horseshoe crab. Scientists are trying to create a new bait that tastes like the horseshoe crab, but in a form of gelatin.


Program website:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/crash/anatomy.html