Ask ALOysius About Horseshoe Crabs

Contributed by Eric Bland, a 4^th grader from Woodruff School in Berkeley Heights, NJ.

Question:

Can you tell me about those scary looking horseshoe crabs I see at the shore in the summer?

ALOysius:

They’re not that scary and actually they can’t hurt you at all. Their tail may look scary but actually it can’t hurt you. They only use it to turn themselves over when the waves flip them over on the beach. They also use their tail to swim. Their claws on their legs also look scary but they are too small to pinch you. That way they can’t hurt you at all. In fact they do many good things for humans and other animals especially birds. It’s a shame human beings are hurting these defenseless creatures.

Here are some important facts about horseshoe crabs:

(1). Description

Horseshoe crabs can grow up to 28” and 1 foot long. They’re greenish tan with two simple eyes on the top of their shells. Around their mouth are five pairs of walking legs and they have gills so they can breathe underwater. They live on sandy bottoms of bays and oceans. They live along the Atlantic coast, the largest number of them live in New Jersey waters. They eat worms and others small animals.

Horseshoe crabs have been on the earth for about 250 million years. They are even older then dinosaurs so if you asked a horseshoe crab if it’s seen dinosaurs it would answer “Yes I have seen them”. That’s why we call them living fossils.

(2). Feeding the Birds

Horseshoe crabs are also very helpful to the birds. They help because when the horseshoe crabs come up and lay their eggs on the beaches, the migrating shore birds come up from South America and feast on their eggs. The birds eat horseshoe crab eggs to give them the energy to fly all whose miles to Canada and the Artic to nest. Without these eggs many birds will die along the way.

(3). Helping Humans

Horseshoe crabs also help humans. They help scientists to learn more about the human eye. Scientists also collect their blue blood to test new medicines for harmful bacteria (someday they might save your life). Fishermen also use them as bait to catch eel and conch. Horseshoe crabs also help farmers because they grind them up and use them for fertilizer and that helps them grow their crops. Parts of its shell are used in sutures and burn dressings to increase healing time.

(4). How Man is Endangering these Animals

People are also killing them by thinking they’re creatures that will hurt them and pick them up by the tail and because their tail can’t hold the shell their tail falls off. Also now there’s not enough shore lining where the horseshoe crabs lay their eggs because people put a lot of docks where the beach is. People also endanger them by taking too many of them out of the ocean to use for things like bait.

(5). How we can Help

*We can help by protecting the horseshoe crabs’ environment by keeping the bays and ocean clean.

*We can help people learn about the horseshoe crabs so they know how to treat them. People should put the horseshoe crabs they find on the beach back in the water safely so they won’t hurt them.

*We can also help to protect the beaches where they lay their eggs from development.

*We can write to the Department of Environmental Protection (D.E.P.) telling them to control the catching of horseshoe crabs.

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