HORSESHOE CRABS- Acrobatics

It’s said that all life began in the oceans. Well, this month, one of the earth’s oldest living species, the Horseshoe crab, will leave its watery home to mate and lay eggs on the beach. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

“When you look at the animals they’re built in three parts. It has a large shield-like front part, a mid part and a long spike-like tail. So it has extremely simplified body structure.”

Carl Schuster is an Adjunct Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary. He tells us that although Horseshoe crabs spend most of their time in the water, they do very little swimming. In fact, it’s on land that the crabs carry out their most impressive acrobatics.

“And the Horseshoe crab is relatively simple, but when you examine how it behaves and how it moves, then its simplicity sort of disappears. With just three body parts and the appendages, [it] can perform a lot of acrobatic type activities that you wouldn’t imagine that they can do. If they’re stranded on the beach, [they] will dig into the beach for from protection from the sun and wait for the high tide to come back and rescue them. They dig for food. The females coming in to the beach to lay eggs digs into the beach.”

And the Horseshoe crab’s stiff tail comes in handy when the animal gets turned over on its back.

“If they happen to get turned over, left on a beach, they’ll arch, flex backward and thrust the tail back into the sand and that arches the body upward. And by kicking the legs, it sort of rocks the body side to side until it flips it over.”

Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

HORSESHOE CRABS- Acrobatics

For such a simple animal, Horseshoe crabs are capable of some pretty fancy tail-work.
Air Date:06/03/1999
Scientist:
Transcript:

It's said that all life began in the oceans. Well, this month, one of the earth's oldest living species, the Horseshoe crab, will leave its watery home to mate and lay eggs on the beach. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

"When you look at the animals they're built in three parts. It has a large shield-like front part, a mid part and a long spike-like tail. So it has extremely simplified body structure."

Carl Schuster is an Adjunct Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary. He tells us that although Horseshoe crabs spend most of their time in the water, they do very little swimming. In fact, it's on land that the crabs carry out their most impressive acrobatics.

"And the Horseshoe crab is relatively simple, but when you examine how it behaves and how it moves, then its simplicity sort of disappears. With just three body parts and the appendages, [it] can perform a lot of acrobatic type activities that you wouldn't imagine that they can do. If they're stranded on the beach, [they] will dig into the beach for from protection from the sun and wait for the high tide to come back and rescue them. They dig for food. The females coming in to the beach to lay eggs digs into the beach."

And the Horseshoe crab's stiff tail comes in handy when the animal gets turned over on its back.

"If they happen to get turned over, left on a beach, they'll arch, flex backward and thrust the tail back into the sand and that arches the body upward. And by kicking the legs, it sort of rocks the body side to side until it flips it over."

Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.