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Coastal Estuary Life
The Horseshoe Crab: The horseshoe crab is gaining interest recently thanks to her blood, a copper-based liquid that has the medical community on alert. Her blood was introduced a number of years ago, as a possible treatment for cancer. That idea specifically, was given up, yet, the blood, known as lysate by scientists, acts as a gram-negative test to find the presence of endotoxins in the human bloodstream. Doctors may locate infections quickly and efficiently without injecting lab animals and then waiting for days to see if the animal becomes ill. For 350 million years, this survivor may hold valuable clues to medical mysteries. The present commercial use of the horseshoe crab has aroused concern on a couple of sides. Ideally, the crab is harvested, bled, then returned to its environment. At times, monitors have felt too many large egg-bearing females have died. Even so, those handling the crabs insist they are using the best in knowledge and equipment to ensure the safe return of this valuable commodity. The horseshoe crab is really descended from a giant scorpion which sailed the oceans during the Paleozoic Age. It really is related to today's spiders and scorpions. The horseshoe crabs are very gentle, slow moving, and their behavior indicates they have precise built in clocks to tell them when to move to deep water in winter, bury themselves, and go into hibernation until the changes in light and temperature awaken them. Then, they make a fifty mile swim toward land. Because the horseshoe crab possesses one of the largest and most accessible optic nerves, scientists again are looking at further research and study in this area. It is worth the time to stop and take in the behavior of this very prehistoric and valuable sea creature.
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