{"id":8677,"date":"2011-04-10T20:53:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T01:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8677"},"modified":"2011-04-11T07:52:04","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T12:52:04","slug":"tiny-juvenile-horseshoe-crab-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8677","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Juvenile Horseshoe Crab Emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Juvenile Horseshoe Crab in Wellfleet Marsh<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Saturday proved a glorious early April day with bright sunshine and temperature rising into the lower 50s.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal decided to make its annual spring pilgrimage to the Indian Neck salt marsh system in Wellfleet on the Outer Cape in search of emerging juvenile horseshoe crabs\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Juvenile Horseshoe Crab Tracks in Marsh Channel<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Fox Island Wildlife Management Area on Indian Neck lies on the north bank of Blackfish Creek.\u00c2\u00a0 Protected by barrier dunes, these salt marshes are extremely productive, and each year we look to this area for our first sighting of tiny juvenile horseshoe crabs rising from their winter slumber\u00c2\u00a0along the oozy bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 As we examined the main salt marsh near King Phillip Road, Don spotted telltale signs of miniature horseshoe crab tracks on the channel bottom.<\/p>\n

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Don Lewis Searches Marsh Bottom for Horseshoe Crab<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He photo-documented the marks and then began to solve the maze to determine where the actual critter might be.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you make your first pass along the bottom, turbidity will obscure the search.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you better be right the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 You can play the game yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 Click on the crawl mark photograph to\u00c2\u00a0enlarge it,\u00c2\u00a0and see if you can determine the most likely spot to make your first probe for the critter.<\/p>\n

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Tiny Juvenile Horseshoe Crab Netted<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With a small sampling net, Don probed the bottom about\u00c2\u00a0two inches deep at the most likely location.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course the net\u00c2\u00a0became filled with loose sand and ooze.\u00c2\u00a0 It took several dips of the net back into the water to clear away the muck, as though panning for gold, to reveal\u00c2\u00a0a tiny,\u00c2\u00a0exquisite juvenile horseshoe crab.<\/p>\n

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Juvenile Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Juvenile horseshoe crabs are delightful to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Appearing as ancient as the earliest trilobites, horsehoe crabs create awe in the Turtle Journal team as we study them each year.\u00c2\u00a0 Sadly,\u00c2\u00a0humans have harvested these marvelous creatures to the edge of extinction, impoverishing our entire tidal and inter-tidal eco-systems, as well as driving certain shorebirds that survive long migrations on horseshoe crab eggs\u00c2\u00a0to the brink, too.\u00c2\u00a0 It gives us joy, though,\u00c2\u00a0to find juveniles each spring\u00c2\u00a0as\u00c2\u00a0we\u00c2\u00a0hope for sanity to prevail in state and federal management of this important species.\u00c2\u00a0 As you may know, horseshoe crabs are true blue bloods (with copper rather than iron) that yield a powerful bacterial detector that saves human lives.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re also extremely valuable in the research of vision (with both compound and simple eyes)\u00c2\u00a0as well as\u00c2\u00a0many other scientific and medical breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

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Underside of Tiny Juvenile Horseshoe Crab<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Upside down, this little horseshoe crab presents a nice view of its five pairs of walking, swimming and foraging legs, as well as its book gills behind the legs.\u00c2\u00a0 You may know that to grow, a horseshoe crab must molt.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It leaves\u00c2\u00a0its shell when it gets too confining, and soon a new, larger shell hardens around its soft tissue.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes sixteen\u00c2\u00a0and seventeen molts respectively over a period of nine to eleven years for a male and a female to reach maturity.<\/p>\n

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Release of Juvenile Horseshoe Crab Back into Marsh<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As soon as\u00c2\u00a0we finished our analysis of this youngster, we released it back into the same marsh channel.\u00c2\u00a0 It took a couple of attempts to make sure that the critter was safe and sound, as it burrowed itself back under the oozy bottom to enjoy the rest of this beautiful April day.\u00c2\u00a0 Bon chance, young horseshoe crab!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juvenile Horseshoe Crab in Wellfleet Marsh Saturday proved a glorious early April day with bright sunshine and temperature rising into the lower 50s.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal decided to make its annual spring pilgrimage to the Indian Neck salt marsh system in Wellfleet on the Outer Cape in search of emerging juvenile horseshoe crabs\u00c2\u00a0 Juvenile Horseshoe Crab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[402,824],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8677"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8715,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677\/revisions\/8715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}