Horseshoe Crabs !!

So, let me see if I can get all this technical jargon correct.  Our son’s college friend Joe (whom we had the pleasure of meeting earlier this week, along with his wife & dynamite daughter) is an authority on several migratory shore birds.  We could have called him an “expert”, but you have to live at least 50 miles out of town to be brought in as an “expert”.

I guess we could go ahead and call him an expert on the following birds:  Red Knot, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Semi-palmated Sandpiper (as real “snore” of a name), and the Willet.  Some of these birds migrate from Brazil & South America up to the Artic to breed (I could make a joke about traveling this huge distance to breed, but I won’t).  The point in all this is that all these birds stop along the shore of the Delaware Bay to feed, and many of them land along the restored beaches just north of Cape May.

“So, what do these birds eat around here to give them the energy to migrate so far”, you ask!  Why, they eat the eggs of the horseshoe crabs, which are spawning on the sand beaches this time of year.  So Joe goes to the beaches to count not only the birds, but also the horseshoe crabs.  And yesterday, he dragged along two city slickers who were astounded at what they saw!

 

 

Joe showing what's under the shell

We find that the horseshoe crab has been living in the Delaware Bay area in higher concentrations than in anywhere else in the world.  And the blood of a horseshoe crab has some special foo-foo dust (lysate) that is used around the world to test for bacterial contamination.  So the population of horseshoe crabs is monitored for several important reasons.

This crab had been trying to right itself & made a
pattern in the sand.  Yes, we put him back in the water

At the shore, we saw thousands and thousands of crabs along the beach.  Joe showed us how to tell a male from a female (that’s important if you’re a crab), how the female burrows into the sand to lay her eggs, and what an egg cluster looks like.  He explained how the crabs come to the beaches mostly at high tide, and we saw how sensitive the crabs were to the breaking waves of the surf (it’s been very windy & rough for a week around here, which is why we’re still in Cape May).  When the crabs get turned upside down by the surf, they try to right themselves by pivoting their rear joint & tail, which doesn’t work very often.  Sue & I spent most of our time righting the stranded crabs & placing them back into the water.

 

This crab is trying to right itself by pivoting its tail

These are the eggs which the birds are looking for

An egg cluster found on top of the sand

Let’s just say that we had a fantastic time, seeing and learning things we had never seen nor knew before.  It was much better than going to the tourist attractions around town.  And I’d think that most other transient boaters who pass through Cape May, can’t claim that they played with horseshoe crabs!

the female is buried into the sand to lay the eggs. 
She is surrounded by 5 males that have grabbed onto her

Some crabs won't make it back into the water.  The gulls
will eat the eggs or the stranded crabs.

A budding biologist!!