Abby Rottler
Juvenile horseshoe crab
This is a photo of a 3.5 year old juvenile horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. He is one of the three new additions to the invertebrate side of the touch pool at North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. They have a light brown shell that is in an iconic horseshoe shape giving the animal its name. The average size of this animal is 24 inches long and 12 inches wide. The females are larger in both spectrums than the males. They are not true crabs but more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions as they are in the Arthropoda family. They use the shell for protection from predators. They have a spiny tail which they use as a device to flip themselves over when stuck on their backs. They have five pairs of legs with four pairs being their walking legs and the last pair is called swimmerets which they use to aid their walking. The front legs are how to tell the sex of the animal. If they are curved like boxing gloves, the animal is male and if the claws look the same as the others, it is a female. They use book gills to both breathe and moving when they are flipped onto their backs. In the late spring, the horseshoe crabs migrate from deep water to spawn. They crawl onto the beach and make long chains with the female in the front and males attached. Horseshoe crabs grow larger by molting their exoskeleton and growing a new one. They mature at 9-11 years old and can live for many years. They have blue, copper rich blood that is used in medical testing. The blood contains a clotting agent that reacts to bacteria echo is harmful to humans which allows this to be a good testing agent before medicines and vaccines are used to humans. The horseshoe crab feeds on small clams, bivalves, worms, detritus and other invertebrates.
Juvenile horseshoe crab
This is a photo of a 3.5 year old juvenile horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. He is one of the three new additions to the invertebrate side of the touch pool at North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. They have a light brown shell that is in an iconic horseshoe shape giving the animal its name. The average size of this animal is 24 inches long and 12 inches wide. The females are larger in both spectrums than the males. They are not true crabs but more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions as they are in the Arthropoda family. They use the shell for protection from predators. They have a spiny tail which they use as a device to flip themselves over when stuck on their backs. They have five pairs of legs with four pairs being their walking legs and the last pair is called swimmerets which they use to aid their walking. The front legs are how to tell the sex of the animal. If they are curved like boxing gloves, the animal is male and if the claws look the same as the others, it is a female. They use book gills to both breathe and moving when they are flipped onto their backs. In the late spring, the horseshoe crabs migrate from deep water to spawn. They crawl onto the beach and make long chains with the female in the front and males attached. Horseshoe crabs grow larger by molting their exoskeleton and growing a new one. They mature at 9-11 years old and can live for many years. They have blue, copper rich blood that is used in medical testing. The blood contains a clotting agent that reacts to bacteria echo is harmful to humans which allows this to be a good testing agent before medicines and vaccines are used to humans. The horseshoe crab feeds on small clams, bivalves, worms, detritus and other invertebrates.