"The horseshoe crab is a 'living fossil' : forms almost identical to this species were present during the Triassic period 230 million years ago, and similar species were present in the Devonian, a staggering 400 million years ago"
Locally (In Brunei) they are known as Belangkas or Imi-Imi...
The horseshoe crab or Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) is a marine chelicerate arthropod. Despite its name, it is more closely related to spiders, ticks, and scorpions than to crabs. Horseshoe crabs are most commonly found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the northernAtlantic coast of North America. A main area of annual migration is Delaware Bay, although stray individuals are occasionally found in Europe.
The other three species in the family Limulidae are also called horseshoe crabs. The Japanese horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) is found in the Seto Inland Sea, and is considered an endangered species because of loss of habitat. Two other species occur along the east coast of India such as Brunei and Malaysia :Tachypleus gigas and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda.
The extinct diminutive horseshoe crab, Lunataspis aurora, 4 centimetres (1.6 in) from head to tail-tip, has been identified in 445-million-year-oldOrdovician strata in Manitoba.
Two new species of horseshoe crabs identical to those lived 400 million years ago was captured in 2003 by the deep see scientific submarine Voyager of University of Higashi Osaka in Japan (Picture at right).
"Enzymes from horseshoe crab blood are used by astronauts in the International Space Station to test surfaces for unwanted bacteria and fungi"
"Hospitals sometimes use extracts of horseshoe crab blood when diagnosing human bacterial diseases and checking for toxins in intravenous solutions."
Interesting article.. Its looks like a alien.. Lol.. :D
ReplyDeletewow , longer then the ones we have in the Delaware bay
ReplyDeleteWe will destroy them in a few years after they have survived for so long. the cruelty in using them and draining their blood, and using them for bait and fertilizer. How can we be so stupid and criminal?
ReplyDeleteWow those are huge. I gotta do a project on horshoe crabs.. anymore info on this?
ReplyDeleteI'm in Milford, CT and it is now mating season. This past Monday I was floored by how many of them kept coming to this one marshy area. It was wild but also a bit scary. LOL They are far from lovely looking but definitely fascinating just the same. I laughed as I thought to myself it was like a motorcycle run with all the chicks on the back going for the ride. ;)
ReplyDelete2 new species, "Identical" to those 400 million years ago? Could not possibly be the same species, huh? Because that would be impossible with our current age of earth theory. So lets push this evidence off the table and call it a new species that happens to look a lot like an older one. Yeah thats science. Ever notice how much they look like the trilobites from the Cambrian? Maybe there was no need to evolve, because they were perfect the moment they leapt into existence. An instant explosion of perfection! and we don't believe in miracles
ReplyDeletesorry to break it to you but those two new species are in fact artworks created by the rogue taxidermist(a taxidermist that makes art by modifying the corpse of an animal instead of making a faithful reproduction) Takeshi Yamada, and discovered on the sea floor of japan.
ReplyDeleteif you do ctrl+f on his blog(http://takeshiyamada.weebly.com/3-horseshoe-crab-center.html) and search "Prehistoric Giant Horseshoe Crabs" you will find the exact picture shown here and the text
"These giant marine organisms were inspired by the fossils of the trilobites and ancient horseshoe crabs. These shows how closely horseshoe crabs are related to trilobites. They were created by Yamada by using body parts of today's horseshoe crab carapaces salvaged at the Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn, NY."
please research better next time as you can see that the other users here believed that they were actual living horseshoe crab species and not reproductions.
tldr; 2 "newly discovered" horseshoe crab species are just reproductions of ancient ones made by an artist.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeshi_Yamada
http://takeshiyamada.weebly.com/3-horseshoe-crab-center.html
*, and not discovered on the floor of see floor of japan
DeleteThe pair of elongated ones were obviously a hoax.
ReplyDeleteThe pair of elongated ones were obviously a hoax.
ReplyDelete