HomeMy WebLinkAboutJune 04, 1961 - Horseshoe CrabsHORSE SHOE CRABS (male on right)
Exclusive Sunday Review Sketch by Dennis Puleston of Brookhaven
Focus Nature by Paul
Stoutenburgh
Cutchogue Come down to the bay with me just after the sun
has slipped away and the wind has gone to rest. Here a
quiet settles over our world where only a gentle working of
the bay is heard. The atmosphere suggests to us that
something is, about to happen. The stage. is set and sure enough,
as soon as our eyes get accustomed to the darkness we see
the ushers of the
performance. They glide in,
silhouetted against the dimly -lit sky.
These are the Night Herons who
have come to fish for the night,
only to return to their roost
before most of us are about. Later,
when the darkness spreads its
cloak, we know only of their
presence by the familiar,
unmusical
But these are only part
of the show, for the story I want
to tell you is one that you
should know if you are not familiar
with our beaches at ebb tide in
the spring. It is a story that
starts over 200 million years ago,
when this ivorld was just beginning,
and the gtbtesque shapes
of prehistoric beings were evolving.
Our story is about the Horseshoe
Crab or, as he is lanown to
some, the king
Crab. a4 Down the beach a
short way our tale starts to unfold
as it has each year at this
time when they return from the deep
to per- form their
spring ritual. We see this creature s l o w
l y lurching along, plowing
half sub- merged as it lays its
clusters of small green -tined eggs
along the high tide limits. Attached
to the tail of the large female '
is the smaller mate who
travels alonp, to fertilize the eggs as
they
are laid. After a period of three
to five weeks ,depending on
the tempera- ture of the water and
sand, the little crabs hatch out
and start their never - ending b a t t l
e
for survival. D u r i n g the first
year, the Horseshoe Crab s}ieds m a
n y times. Most of us have
seen soft shell crabs but few
have ever observed the soft-
shelled Horse- shoe Crab. And yet,
often when we are out clamming
in shallow water, we can trace
these young crabs by following their
tell -tale trails through
the sand. What we find is a
sand- colored leathery crab. This
color changes as they grow older
until they later become olive brown
or red- dish brown
in color. In shedding, the
Horseshoe Crab differs from other crabs
in that it sheds out the front of
the shell rather than the back. Such
a neat job of shedding is done
that many times we see the
discarded shells fully -intact along
the shores. It is after shedding that t
h e crabs grow and it is
obvious that during this period they
are most vulnerable to attack, for
they stay in this soft condition
for days until the sheit'hardens.
Once it has acquired its
hardened shell, this prehistoric tank can
face the world unmolested. A
full -grown female will reach the
length of 20 inches, while males
are much smaller
in size. Many times I have
found these old timers with the topside
of the shell so covered with
acorn bar- nacles and grass that it
is hard to distinguish their two
pair of eyes. One pair is directly
in front while the other more
obvious pair is located on the sides.
Turn this grassy monster over and
you will often see slipper
limpets attached to the
underside. 4 The jagged spear
so character- istic of this crab is not
used for defense or attack but
rather to help right itself should
it become overturned. Probably you h a
v e seen this when a crab
has been tossed up on the beach.
The tail literally flips it over so
that it may return to
the sea. My interest in this
little -known crab started one day when
I was reading about the
spider family and was amazed to see
that the Horseshoe Crab belonged
to this clan, and was not
a crustacean as I had thought.
His nearest relatives are the
scorpions and spiders. Although it is not
a true crustacean, it had the
blue blood that characterizes
mollusks
and crabs. Actually, this crab is
an air - breather, eve nthough it
lives in the w a t e r.
The manufacturing plant for this conversion
is read- ily seen when one is
turned over. This section, called the
gill book, looks like a series of
pages, one on top of the other. It
is through these that oxygen
is exchanged when these books
are rhythmic- ally shaken as the
crab hinges alone
the bottom. Like m a n v of
the common crabs, a Horseshoe Crab
can live a long time out of the,
water. In the olden days, farmers
would go down with their wagons
and col- lect the "horse
feet ". These would be used for
fertilizer or for feeding their pigs
and chick- ens. Many times they
were held over, alive,
until needed. Today there is no s p e c i
a l commercial value for
them but occasionally. fishermen
will col- lect them "for bait in
eel traps. Theiy do no particular"
harm ex- cept for the occasional
scare they give a swimmer who
has never faced
one before. They feed on
small inverte- brates and worms which
they dig up in their constant
plowing and burrowing. It is
interesting to note that the crab
must contin- ually be on the move
in order to eat because he
operates - similar to a machine that
consumes as
it runs. It is disheartening to
walk along the beaches to see
what length man will go to trying
to eliminate these Horseshoe Crabs.
To de- liberately destroy them,
just be- cause they invade `
bur" beaches in the springtime
is ridiculous. Yet we who know Nature's way realize how insignificant
this act' really is in comparison
to the Multitudes of hardships
and bat. tles this creature
has overcome in the past 200
million years'
FIELD OBSERVATIONS:_ Dennis. Putestonreports: Brook- haven — May 25 —
Pay-breasted Warbler, CanadaWarbler,'Mag nolia ' karbler, Chestnut -s i
didn Warbler, Cape
May , Warbler, Nashville Warbler;
Parula ,Warb- ler. Black- throated
Green rb- ler,- Gnatcatcher,
Redstart, ve- backed thrush,
Warbling reo, Northern
Water Thrush. , Send your Field
Observations or Comments to
Paul Stoutenburgh, Route No 1, Box No105, Bay Avenue, Cutchogue,
New York. Next week we are
having Keith McKenna, as our guest
writer. He t e a c h es'Irnglish
at Riverhead High and has a delightful
way of explaining some of the
things that many of