This is the shell formally known as horseshoe crab. Something that until Tuesday I had never seen in real life. Not in an aquarium, not in a zoo, not in passing on the highway (I'm talking to you 'gator!) and certainly not on a stroll with my dog along the bay waters of a major waterway.
Now I'm an expert on horseshoe crabs. In fact I've spent the last two days telling everyone everything I've learned about horseshoe crabs and they all think I'm absolutely insane. But look at it! Look at it! How can you not be totally transfixed by such a thing?
On Tuesday morning Roland and I were at Lemon Creek Park on Staten Island (more on that later). The park overlooks Prince's (or Princess, depending on who you ask around there) Bay. So we were walking along the beach. He was trying to catch gulls, I was enjoying the salt air. When I heard the seaweed drying. Actually heard it drying in the sun. That's when I looked down and realized the beach was littered with the shells of horseshoe crabs. Thus my obsession began.
It turns out every May and June, horseshoe crabs emerge from the bay onto the beaches in Lemon Creek Park to reproduce. These guys were the ones that didn't survive the process, I guess. The females emerge from the water with their male counterparts literally in tow. Males grasp onto the back of the female’s shell using their hooked legs, sometimes as many as four males onto one female. The female horseshoe crabs dig a hole in the sand and lay up to 20,000 tiny olive-green eggs inside.
The crab had been around since before the dinosaurs, about 1.2 billion years. Though it is called a crab, it is actually more closely related to the spider and scorpion.
But I was really shocked to find out is that, among other things, the horseshoe crab is used to make contact lenses. That's right people! You are putting horseshoe crabs in YOUR EYE every friggin' day!
I'm supposed to be writing my column, but instead of life as a 30-something all I can think about are horseshoe crabs. And that's probably NOT a column anyone wants to read.
3 comments:
They're not quite 1.2 billion years old.... more like 440 million. But they were definitely before dinosaurs. At any rate, that's a long, long time for such little change in any type of animal!
A little knowledge about horseshoe crabs can be infectious! Aren't they great though? Suggestion: establish a Google Alert and you will learn more about them every day. It's heartening to hear your fascination and enthusiasm for these creatures....you'll have to go to Delaware and Cape Cod to see more along the beaches. And then, you'll get interested in red knots too. We're all inter-related. Have fun!
I will admit that most of my knowledge about horseshoe crabs did come from the New York City Parks Department - maybe not the end all source of knowledge about the creatures. I'll have to branch out more :-)
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