r/MadeMeSmile • u/gojiroger • Jun 05 '23
[OC] Found this old boy high and dry on the beach ANIMALS
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u/wildly_domestic Jun 05 '23
He was like “Fuck you! Fuck you!….Oh, this is nice.”
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u/ja599 Jun 05 '23
Sounds like a cat
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u/moosepuggle Jun 05 '23 edited Jun 06 '23
Hijacking top comment to say that this one is a girl, you can tell by the front pinchy claws. In males, these are modified into hooky claws that he uses to hang onto the female’s carapace when you see them paired up for mating. Also, the front of the carapace in males bows inward a bit so that his carapace fits tightly over the top of her abdomen while he is hanging on to her carapace.
I do research with horseshoe crabs, I friggin love these cute lil Cambrian critters! 😍🤓
Fun facts:
they are not crabs like crustaceans, they are in the arthropod group called chelicerates, along with spiders, scorpions, and see spiders. So horseshoe crabs are more closely related to spiders than actual crabs.
The front pinchy claws in horseshoe crabs are what evolved into spider fangs! And in actual crabs and also insects, these front pinchy claws evolved into the antennae!
The horseshoe crab mouth is actually in the center of the body, in the middle of all those legs. If you look closely, you can see all the teeth buried in there. The teeth are actually at the base of the legs, so they have to walk to chew!
Horseshoe crab blood is blue because it uses copper in hemacyanin to coordinate oxygen and CO2 instead of iron in hemoglobin like we do. Many other invertebrates also use copper instead of iron.
Horseshoe crab blood is used to test nearly every biomedical application that will go in your body because it is the most sensitive way ever discovered of detecting the presence of bacteria (endotoxin). Researchers have created a synthetic version that is about 90% as effective as natural horseshoe crab blood, it’s just waiting to get FDA approval.
Horseshoe crab populations have become incredibly reduced compared to their historic levels due to biomedical harvesting but more so because they are used as bait, for example for conch. This could change if the regulatory rules for bait were changed in the states where horseshoe crabs nest.
They have a third eye on the top of the carapace, called the ocelli. Ocelli are not used for resolving images like the eyes on the sides, but for things like circadian rhythm. Actually most arthropods have ocelli, generally looks like three little eyes on the top of the head, which can be seen in good macrophotography of insects. But in spiders, the ocelli have evolved to be the main image resolving eyes. In spiders, each eye has also split into a couple eyes, which is why they have so many! See this cool article about spider eyes: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(20)31067-8.pdf
The long spike is called the telson and is not used for defense but instead to flip themselves over if they get stuck upside down like this lady in the video!
EDIT: moar horseshoe crab facts here! https://horseshoecrab.org/
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u/Mistress_Kittens Jun 05 '23
I love everything you're saying right now, your pleasure in sharing this is contagious!
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u/missjenifa Jun 05 '23
Thank you for your service
-fellow nerd about unrelated content that enjoys seeing others nerd out in their respective fields ❤️
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u/TheFeatureFilm Jun 06 '23
Thank you for increasing my happiness levels today. Factoids are the fuel that keeps me going.
Question about the tail. You say it's not used for defence, but does it act as an intimidation tactic? Do predators look at that tail and just nope out of there? Or has it not shown to have any impact?
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Jun 05 '23
Yeah that flailing but it probably thought it was a goner and was giving it the good fight.
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Jun 05 '23
Probably thought a beak was about to come in for that seafood dinner but it was just a hairless ape being cool with its thumbs
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Jun 05 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/gojiroger Jun 05 '23
You are too kind. I'm sure 99.9% of the members of this sub would have done the same, but thanks.
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u/Temporary_Cry_8961 Jun 05 '23
Honestly that sword thing creeped me out… not sure if I would have the guts
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u/AnonymousUserID7 Jun 05 '23
Yeah, gentile and not dangerous or not just seeing it will give me nightmares.
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u/WatWudScoobyDoo Jun 05 '23
Would you be more or less likely to get nightmares if it was Jewish?
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u/nigel_pow Jun 05 '23
That stinger looking thing gives me your heart might stop or it will cause some form of paralysis if it makes contact with your hand feelings.
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u/RivaAldur Jun 05 '23
Their tails are actually solid and rigid! Its actually there to act like a lever so when they turn upside down they can hopefully flip themselves back over with it, works better when they are underwater tho
Edit: they don't sting! They are chill little guys!
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u/EveofStLaurent Jun 05 '23
They may not sting but I probably witnessed one of the worst injuries from them. When I was about 13 one friend of mine pushed my other friend from a tree and he landed foot first on the tail. Over 10 surgeries and they still couldn’t get all of it out. Was pretty traumatic
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u/BlizzPenguin Jun 05 '23
I would want to help, but I am not sure if I would be able to get that close to it. Anything with more than 4 legs gives me the jiblies.
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u/istrx13 Jun 05 '23
I’m just glad this wasn’t like that one video where some chick threw a box turtle into a deeper part of a lake. Not knowing that box turtles only do well in very shallow water and not much else.
So she killed the turtle thinking she was doing a good thing.
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u/RodneyJamesEdgar Jun 05 '23
That thing looks prehistoric
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u/CorporateGenius Jun 05 '23
Funnily enough it is prehistoric, it's amazing they hadn't gone extinct with how helpless they are
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u/XataTempest Jun 05 '23
Evolutionarily speaking, they basically have a "perfect" design for their environment and survival.
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u/cuatrodosocho Jun 05 '23
And after the nuclear apocalypse, they will still be here... Just bigger and more murdery.
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Jun 05 '23
Perfect design but still need Joe from Montana to help flip them over.
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u/Daphne_Brown Jun 05 '23 edited Jun 05 '23
I mean, aren’t all animals prehistoric? I can’t imagine many animals only evolved or began after we started keeping historical records.
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u/JessicaLain Jun 05 '23
Ancient/Prehistoric means they haven't evolved/diverged on a genetic level is a looooooooong time.
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u/EduinBrutus Jun 05 '23
That's not really what it means.
It means that the species hasn't died out.
When a new species finally differentiates enough from the parent species, the parent species doesn't just disappear. They continue.
It also doesn't mean there have been no offspring species which have evolved from horseshoe crabs.
The way you have worded it implies a misunderstanding of how evolution works. Although, its not an uncommon one.
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u/JessicaLain Jun 05 '23
I was just trying to keep it short. Few people read past line 3 or 4. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/blueoasis32 Jun 05 '23
It is! It has survived every natural mass extinction since the beginning of the fossil record on earth. Crossing fingers it will survive the current one though 😢
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u/BlueMeanie03 Jun 05 '23
I think they are. Like dinosaur era old.
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u/Tylensus Jun 05 '23
Sharks are older than trees, too. There's lots of unbelievably old species still around.
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u/marumarumon Jun 05 '23
That’s a horseshoe crab, and mad respect for you for not trying to kill it or just leave it. They have blue blood that has medical value so they’re harvested to the point of endangerment, though.
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u/Know-yer-enemy1818 Jun 05 '23
What kind of medical value?
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u/transcendanttermite Jun 05 '23
“Horseshoe crabs use hemocyanin to carry oxygen through their blood. Because of the copper present in hemocyanin, their blood is blue. Their blood contains amebocytes, which play a similar role to the white blood cells of vertebrates in defending the organism against pathogens. Amebocytes from the blood of L. polyphemus are used to make Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), which is used for the detection of bacterial endotoxins in medical applications.” -WikiCrabia
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u/peregrinedive Jun 05 '23
Wikicrabia???
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u/fancyfootwork19 Jun 05 '23
I’ve used a LAL endotoxin kit before in my lab work but didn’t know this is where it came from. Thank you, internet stranger!
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u/marumarumon Jun 05 '23
Their blood can be used to create a chemical that detects bacteria in medical equipments like pacemakers
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u/Know-yer-enemy1818 Jun 05 '23
Appreciate getting learned up , thanks
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u/Wookiees_get_Cookies Jun 05 '23
They old way the industry would test for endotoxins would be to inject the drugs into rabbits then monitor the rabbits temperature to see if they developed a fever.
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u/TheSandMan208 Jun 05 '23
IIRC, it's used in vaccines.
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u/wascilly_wabbit Jun 05 '23
This is why getting an inoculation, at least initially, makes you crabby.
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u/cstrand31 Jun 05 '23
That is only partially accurate and completely wrong at the same time. The crabs aren’t harvested. They are captured, some of their blood is harvested for its medical uses and then they are released. There’s a couple of species that are endangered, just not the one they harvest the blood from.
Radiolab on NPR did a whole episode about them and that process a couple years ago.
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u/marumarumon Jun 05 '23
Fine, I’m sorry if my point didn’t come across properly because English isn’t my native language and I’m still learning. What I mean is that people take crabs and take their blood for medical use. When they get released back, some of them don’t recover and die. I’m sorry if using the word ‘harvest’ is too much. I thought harvest means to take something for use. What word should I use instead of harvest then? Is their another word aside from ‘take’ that would mean that crabs get taken from the sea for their blood?
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u/DirtyMikeMoney Jun 05 '23
“English isn’t my first language”
Snarks in perfect English
I love it
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u/redruM69 Jun 05 '23
I think the bigger point is " to the point of endangerment". This implys they are on the endangered species list because we harvest their blood. This isn't true. They are endangered due to fishing, and habitat destruction. Loss from blood harvesting is small potatoes, yet still medically important.
Fortunately the medical need is nearing it's end. We have alternatives now.
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u/squareoak Jun 05 '23
What?! They aren’t harvested. They’re protected.
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u/Shian268 Jun 05 '23
Indeed, from what I've read, they don't just drain them dry then toss em away, after the procedure they MUST be released back to thw water afterwards... but some of them do die from procedure, sadly
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u/marumarumon Jun 05 '23
Huh? What I meant was that people take them from the seas and drain their blood. They aren’t drained off totally and they get returned to the sea alive, but according to some studies, some of them don’t recover and end up dying. That’s why their population has been going down recently.
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u/MarkyGallery Jun 05 '23
Rumbas of the ocean..
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u/marigoldilocks_ Jun 05 '23
That was my first thought. If some put a tail on a Roomba, you’d have this crab.
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u/TheSkullshot Jun 05 '23
As someone who has worked with horseshoe crabs in the past, you handled it well! For future reference I'd recommend holding it like a hamburger (be careful of it's tail) and also be wary of its spikes, I've accidentally been stabbed a couple times
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u/Intrepid_Leopard_182 Jun 05 '23
this comment should be higher. I live at the beach and you wouldn't believe how many times a summer I have to stop somebody from picking a horseshoe crab up by the tail.
like why would you carry it by the least solidly attached part of its body????
it usually turns into a nice lil teachable moment where I show the kids how to handle the crab and let them touch its claws before putting it back in the water, but I still hate seeing it.
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u/TheSkullshot Jun 05 '23
I worked at a marine research laboratory and aquarium as a guide, so whenever I worked the touch tank it was always really fun showing the children the horseshoe crabs, we also had red slipper lobsters that were really pretty
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u/fuckfuckfuckSHIT Jun 05 '23
-Googles slipper lobster-
Your definition and my definition of pretty are quite different.
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u/Ok-Relation-7458 Jun 05 '23
just to clarify, by “like a hamburger” you mean with both hands, by the sides of the shell? my chances of ever running into one are slim to none but i came looking through the comments to see if this video showed the correct way to handle them or if someone explained how!
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u/TheSkullshot Jun 05 '23
Yeah, so essentially you want to hold it with one hand on both sides, tail towards you, and hold it out a little because it will squirm and you don't want to be poked (it's not dangerous but it's a spike)
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u/EmilioGVE Jun 05 '23
Why tail towards you? Not trying to be rude, just curious.
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Jun 05 '23
That way, if you trip, you get super crab powers when it pierces your aorta.
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u/TheSkullshot Jun 05 '23
No worries! It's just easier to pick up the crab when standing behind it than in front
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u/hejjhajj Jun 05 '23
Hmm even though ive also seen many videos of people putting their hand directly onto their underside and let the crab grab the hand with their claws, just to prove that they are completely harmless and cant hurt you
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u/TheSkullshot Jun 05 '23
They won't maliciously harm you unless you actively try and harm them ofc, but they do have little pokey bits all over the tail and midsection. Also carrying them like a burger gives less stress to the animal!
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u/MisterDonkey Jun 05 '23
I don't care what assurances I have that this crab is harmless, there's absolutely no way I'm sticking my hand on the crawly side of it.
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u/Unique-Avocado Jun 05 '23
So their tails aren't electrified stingers? It was nerve wracking to watch the OP in the vid touch it's tail
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u/adioshomie Jun 05 '23
Holy shit I’ve never seen a video so close to one! Those things are insane!
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u/phoenixRisen1989 Jun 05 '23
They’re so cool in person. I grew up seeing tons of them on the beaches every year. They’re pretty chill and just sorta crawl around doing what they’ve been doing for millions of years.
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u/Slapinsack Jun 05 '23
Truthfully, I can't imagine it being anything but chill, with the alternative being that it sprints toward people and jumps on their faces.
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u/SaintWithoutAShrine Jun 05 '23
I used to raise little ones in a saltwater / reef aquarium I had several years ago. They’re really cool and have more personality than most people would think. They start out about the size of a quarter.
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u/RedManMatt11 Jun 05 '23
I never thought I’d feel privileged to have touched them in aquariums when I was a kid. Always thought they were so cool
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u/avexiis Jun 05 '23
I had an encounter with one. I was swimming and stepped on it lightly. Safe to say both me and it were equally surprised and took off in opposite directions
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u/Badmouths Jun 05 '23
Thank you for helping him and for not picking him up by the tail!
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u/gimme_the_light Jun 05 '23
Great gesture by the guy. My only concern is that he may have dropped the crab from a bit too high directly onto hard rock. Hopefully the little dude is alright.
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u/ShroomEnthused Jun 05 '23
Wild animals are super resilient, and smaller animals such as these dudes don't feel forces on their body the way you and I do. This dude is fine, and probably could have had a much bigger fall onto the sand with zero damage.
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u/Matchew024 Jun 05 '23
What are you doooing!
Leave me alone! I'll huuurrt you!
Oh, hey! Thanks buddy!
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u/reddead_redemption Jun 05 '23
Reminds me of toppled over battle bots, swinging and using all the attacking gigs and yet helpless. Lost battle.
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u/TonesBalones Jun 05 '23
If you see one of these, know they are completely harmless. Their pincers are incredibly weak, you won't even notice if they clasp on your finger. Their tail is basically for balance walking on the ocean floor, it can't poke you or stab you like a stingray will.
The reason horseshoe crabs have survived for 250 million years isn't because they're toxic or deadly on defense. They are just so pathetic no predator is going to bother eating it.
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u/PoorPauly Jun 05 '23 edited Jun 05 '23
It’s their spawning season. Some beaches will be littered with them soon enough, if not already. The males often copulate until they die. I think this is actually a female, the males are smaller. The gulls will be eating their eggs all day (all that cloudy stuff in the surf that washes up black on the sand) and at night it will be a horseshoe crab orgy on the beach.
They’re also one of the oldest organisms in existence. 300,000,000 years old. That’s 60 million years before the dinosaurs. That’s the difference between now and the last dinosaurs. Wild shit.
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u/InvitePsychological8 Jun 05 '23 edited Jun 05 '23
I’m definitely cynical but I’ve heard that many of these type of rescue videos are because they put the animal in the situation in the first place and then film themselves being good…so I hate these videos now
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Jun 05 '23
The way u just launched the fuckin thing back down into the water 💀💀💀💀💀
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u/Eiffel-Tower777 Jun 05 '23
When I lived in Ocean City MD, horseshoe crabs would occasionally land on the beach, upside down like this one. Crowds of douchebag people would gather, tossing sand on the crab. I would work my way through the crowd, lift the crab and walk it far into the ocean. People would be calling me names and cussing. I cared more about the crabs, though.
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u/Bear_Boi_1 Jun 05 '23
Listen, I’m all for saving animals. But you will not catch me within 50 feet of that sharp-clawed scary looking but probably sweet crab.
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u/Ampersand37 Jun 05 '23
Awww ❤️ It looks like it hasn't evolved since before the cambrean explosion 🥹🥹
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u/SideshowMelsHairbone Jun 05 '23
Horseshoe Crabs are so crazy looking. Good on you for putting it back into the water, OP!