THE ANCIENT MARINER

We've enjoyed getting to know the "Horseshoe Crab" as most people know it for the last year, especially when we lived in Broadkill. It is really an arthropod, related to spiders, ticks, and scorpions. One morning the beach was literally covered by these beings. We were told to "just flip 'em" when we saw them upside down. So we spent many mornings on Broadkill flipping our new friends. They are like turtles and can't right themselves unless people help them or a big wave takes them out to sea once again. We found out that the spring is the time of mating and the males come ashore first and when the time is right the females start arriving as the males wait along the water line. Then they hook together and go up into the sand. The female makes holes along the way and deposits her eggs. There could be up to 40,000 that she deposits. The males comes along and fertilizes them.

Here are some new facts we learned about them at the DE Center for the Inland Bays.

~They are not dangerous.
~Their tail will not hurt you. It is used to plow themselves through sand and to act as a rudder.
~Do not pick them up by the tail.
~The crab's central mouth is surrounded by its legs and is harmless.
~They have 2 compound eyes on the top of their shells with a range of about 3 feet.
~Horseshoe crabs can swim upside down in the open ocean using their dozen legs (most with claws) and a flap hiding nearly 200 flattened gills to propel themselves.
~They feed mostly at night and burrow for worms and mollusks.
~They grow by molting and emerge 25 percent larger with each molt. After 16 molts (usually between 9 and 12 years) they will be fully grown adults.
~Their eggs are food for migratory shore birds that pass over the Delaware Bay during the spring mating season.
~In the 1900s, horseshoe crabs were dried for use as fertilizer and pountry food supplements.
~The medical profession uses an extract from the horseshoe crab's blue, copper-based blood called lysate to est the purity of medicines. Certain properties of the shell have also been used to speed blood clotting and to make absorbable sutures.

*from www.beach-net.com/horseshoe/Bayhorsecrab.html
July 23, 2009