'Killed in vast numbers': Horseshoe crabs under threat from overharvesting
Robin McKie
Sat 2 Mar 2024 05.51 EST
They are some of the most spectacular images currently on display at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition in London. Huge pictures of weird creatures with golden carapaces and multiple legs scuttling across the seabed now adorn the walls of the city’s Natural History Museum.
The award-winning photographs, taken by Laurent Ballesta, could be visions of extraterrestrial lifeforms. In fact, they are horseshoe crabs that evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and which are some of Earth’s oldest species. These living fossils thrive on the ocean floor where they root out worms, algae, and clams that they crush between their legs before eating.
The biological relationship between horseshoe crabs and Homo sapiens is distant. Yet these strange creatures have become a vitally important cog in modern life – for their bright blue blood is a critical component of tests to assess the safety of vaccines, insulin injections and many other medical interventions used by humans today.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/02/killed-in-vast-numbers-horseshoe-crabs-under-threat-from-overharvesting
= new reply since forum marked as read
