#horseshoe crabs

[great-and-small]

Apparently if you find a tagged Horseshoe crab and report it to Fish and Wildlife they’ll send you a certificate with info about your crab AND a pewter horseshoe crab pin! Keep your eyes peeled 👀

(Photo from the Nantucket Conservation Foundation)

#citizen science #horseshoe crabs #animals #biology #cool #I want that pin so badly but I refuse to buy one it must be earned #zoology #fwc

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Okay, I know people as a general rule tend to not care about invertebrates as much as cute, fuzzy mammals, but this is a must-read if you care about animal welfare. The short version is that horseshoe crab blood has been used for decades in medicine as a way to test whether something is truly sterile; the blood clots in the presence of bacteria. Since then millions of horseshoe crabs have been captured and drained of blood, even though a synthetic alternative was developed a few years ago.

They go through a pretty brutal experience in the process. They're caught by fishermen who often throw them by their tails into a pile in the open air, and they're then trucked to a bleeding facility where they're strapped down and their blood is removed with needles jabbed directly into their hearts. Over half their blood may be taken, after which they're supposed to be returned to the ocean. However, it's likely many of them never make it back, instead turned into fish bait and sold by the same fishermen who caught them in the first place.

Apart from the fact that this is a horrific thing to put any animal through, the attrition due to fatalities has put a serious dent in horseshoe crab numbers. This is compounded by massive habitat loss, pollution, and the capture of horseshoe crabs as food, particularly as the females of one species are considered a delicacy. And other animals that rely on horseshoe crabs are suffering, too. The American rufa subspecies of the red knot, a medium-sized shorebird, is critically endangered as the horseshoe crab eggs it must have in order to successfully complete migration have become increasingly scarce, and it is likely the bird will become extinct if trends continue.

While there are guidelines for medical horseshoe crab harvest, they're considered optional. The few laws that exist are poorly enforced. Short of a complete ban on horseshoe crab blood in favor of the synthetic alternative, these animals are in very real danger of going extinct after a history spanning over 400 million years on this planet.

Thankfully, this article is not the first to bring forth the issues surrounding horseshoe crab harvest. Here are a few resources for further information and action (US based, though horseshoe crabs are threatened throughout their entire range):

Horseshoe Crab Conservation Network - https://horseshoecrab.org/conservation/

Wetlands Institute - https://wetlandsinstitute.org/conservation/horseshoe-crab-conservation/

Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition - https://hscrabrecovery.org/

#animal welfare #animal cruelty #cw animal cruelty #animal suffering #horseshoe crabs #invertebrates #wildlife #animals #environment #conservation #endangered species #extinction #nature #medicine #science #scicomm #science communication

[hometoursandotherstuff]

When the "spaceship" takes off.

#wildlife photo winner #tri-spine horseshoe crab #horseshoe crabs #crustaceans #nature photography #other stuff

[flufflecat]

this is the most beautiful creature on earth and I will kill someone if it asks me to

#horseshoe crabs #I had a fun day at the beach #60% of my time was spent looking for horseshoe crabs #sadly I didn't find any tagged ones so no horseshoe crab pin for me 😔 #God I love these creatures though #shoutout to the girl and her boyfriend who were very interested in hearing my Horseshoe Crab Facts spiel #especially bc the girl let me teach her how to hold the crab so she could take a pic with it #I respect you random beach girl #and your lack of fear when faced with a creature that looks like a facehugger #I'm obsessed with how utterly chill and harmless horseshoe crabs are #they just scoot along like little roombas #and look so creepy but have no ability to hurt anyone #(I don't think they're creepy though. I think they're adorable perfect little angels) #and the way they move is perfect. it looks fake #I wish I could spend the next 7 hours at the beach staring at horseshoe crabs #why oh why must I be here with my family. these losers want to do things like 'go back to the hotel because it's getting dark' #booooo cowards #join me in some nighttime horseshoe crab excursions #cute animals #crabs #(not actually a crab)

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Arthropods

Xiphosura. This order is made up of horseshoe crabs, marine arthropods whose bodies are covered by a hard carapace. They mainly feed on worms and molluscs on the ocean floor. The blood of some species is harvested for LAL, which is used to detect and quantify bacterial toxins

Diplopoda. This order is made up of millipedes, elongated many-legged detritivores which feed on dead plant matter, though some species eat fungi or drink plant fluid.

#animals #biology #polls #poll tournament #zoology #horseshoe crabs #arthropods #ecdytes #millipedes #Xiphosura #Diplopoda #0x2dv0x52 #insects #(not actually insects i'm just tagging that for trigger purposes)

[marlinspirkhall]

Brb crying about horseshoe crabs again

#horseshoe crabs

[nae-nae-supreme]

#my post #you WILL rb this #i spent ten minutes erasing the snale from existence #horseshoe crabs #my image #horseshoe crab #marine biology #marine biology meme

[antiqueanimals]

Seashells, Crabs, and Sea Stars. Written by Christine Kump Tibbitts. Illustrated by Linda Garrow. 1998.

#marine life #echinoderms #sea cucumbers #sand dollars #brittle stars #sea stars #sea urchins #crustaceans #horseshoe crabs #hermit crabs #gastropods #snails #conches #cnidarians #anemones #Linda Garrow

[oplopy1234]

Common misconception, but john lennon was actually assassinated by horseshoe crabs in 1984. That's why the book was written by a soothsayer it was a real conundrum to think of a world without lemon that we couldn't even think of a fruit that would right there. He Died, girlies. He's stone in the ground. Good Grief.

#john lennon #the beatles #horseshoe crabs #women

[thatquietkid108]

Horseshoe crabs are water roombas

#shower thoughts #humans are space orcs #stabby #horseshoe crabs

[great-and-small]

It’s pretty funny that Carl Linnaeus offered up the scientific name “Monoculus polyphemus” (meaning one-eyed cyclops) for a horseshoe crab species because he thought they had one eye, only for them to actually end up having like ten. I mean even just looking at them it’s pretty obvious they have at least two. I feel like that one was kind of an embarrassing swing and a miss for Carl.

#limulus polyphemus #I had to read through so much tedious 1700’s literature to figure out why tf they’re named after a cyclops #biology #Carl Linnaeus #history #horseshoe crabs #funny #animals #nature #zoology

[the-descolada]

huge horseshoe crab I found today at Potter's Cove

#horseshoe crabs #crabs #ocean #ecology #my photos

[kudossi]

carry me to innisfree

She finds herself on a precipice, grass under her paws and gray sky overhead. The smell of salt and the sound of crashing waves fill her senses; her claws dig into sand-strewn soil; her fur lifts with the ocean breeze, strong and stalwart, whipping steadily away from the rising sun. Below her lies ocean, depthless and desperately, achingly blue; beyond her lies water, leaping endlessly toward the golden, rocky shore.

The sun-drown-place, she thinks, and feels at once the age of eight moons and eighty season-cycles. She reaches at once for Feathertail, dead for countless pawsteps; for Tawnypelt, buried seasons ago; for Stormfur, lost to the crags of the mountains; for Crowfeather, who had closed his eyes only moons ago and had never opened them again. She does not reach for Bramblestar; she does not question why. She simply exists, with the ghosts of her friends almost corporeal at her sides, and watches as the wind plays with the waves, salty ocean spray spattering at her paws.

A pale bird swoops overhead, white and soft, feathery gray; with a bolt of delight, Squirrelflight recognizes it as a gull. It had been so long since she had chased them over sand and into the waves, their calls echoing against rocky cliffs. Brambleclaw had snorted, unamused; Feathertail had joined her, swimming through whitecaps and pouncing clumsily on birds until, with the exaggerated air of someone too good for noisy, troublesome birds, she had pulled the largest fish Squirrelflight had ever seen from the waves.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Squirrelpaw had told her, laughing, as Feathertail struggled with a fish bigger than both cats combined.

“Better than looking like a drowned squirrel,” Feathertail had countered, and then Tawnypelt had joined the fray, chasing an odd-looking creature across the shore, all hard shell and hard, straight tail and weird, wiggly, bug-like legs.

“What is this place?” Stormfur had asked, tipping over a bug-prey of his own.

“I don’t know!” Squirrelpaw had replied, delighted, and gotten a mouthful of saltwater for her trouble. She sputtered and spat and dissolved into giggles, lungs seizing and aching and burning, happier than she’d ever been.

#squirrelflight #brambleclaw #bramblestar #feathertail #stormfur #tawnypelt #crowpaw #crowfeather #horseshoe crab #horseshoe crabs #warrior cats #warrior cats fic #waca #wc #tw brief breathing issues #sun-drown-place #ocean #the lake isle of innisfree #fleet foxes title #cw death mention #tw ghost mention

[horseshoecrabs]

got to see a special boy at work today and totally didn’t cry about it (<— they are lying)

#my photos #horseshoe crabs

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Arthropods

Araneae. This order is made up of spiders, eight-limbed arthropods with fangs generally able to inject venom and spinnerets that extrude silk.

Xiphosura. This order is made up of horseshoe crabs, marine arthropods whose bodies are covered by a hard carapace. They mainly feed on worms and molluscs on the ocean floor. The blood of some species is harvested for LAL, which is used to detect and quantify bacterial toxins

#animals #biology #polls #poll tournament #zoology #spiders #arthropods #arachnids #ecdytes #horseshoe crabs #Araneae #Xiphosura #0x11v0x2e

[just-a-tardigrade]

#horseshoe crab #horseshoe crabs #limulus