Early one morning in August, an aquarist at Jenkison’s Aquarium in New Jersey came across some tiny surprises: several hundred Horseshoe Crab babies had hatched in an off-exhibit holding tank. They have been doing very well and some are now on exhibit in the aquarium’s classroom to promote a message of shoreline conservation, as migratory shorebirds depend on Horseshoe Crab eggs for a food source during their long migrations.
The Atlantic Horseshoe Crab has been called a ‘living fossil’ because we find fossilized Horseshoe Crabs from over 200 million years ago. They are actually more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs. This arthropod is in a class by itself though – Merostomata – which means ‘legs attached to the mouth’. Trilobites that lived over 500 million years ago are actually a closer relative to this creature.
