Horseshoe Crabs Pile Up For Night Of Whoopee
source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106489695
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- juxzta1
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On the Delaware Bay shore, there's a swinging party that's been taking place for millions of years.
If you're a female horseshoe crab, then it's your night. You'll swim to shore, meet a special someone and he'll clasp onto the back of your shell. You and he will crawl onto the beach together, where you'll spawn at high tide under the light of the full moon.
But the mate attached to your shell is not your only tryst. On this night, you will mate with up to 13 males, all at the same time. Thousands of horseshoe crabs will pile on top of one another, glistening shells covering the beach for miles.
"We just love the whole phenomena of how once a year, for a season, they do this incredible mating on the beach," Keith Rutter says. "I don't know how anybody can watch this and not get excited about nature and science and how things work in the world."
Rutter and his family didn't travel from Silver Spring, Md., to Delaware's Pickering Beach just to watch the orgy. They came here to count.
The Delaware Bay shore is the site of the largest horseshoe crab spawning in the world, but in the 1990s the horseshoe crab population in the bay plummeted. So on this night, at the world's epicenter of horseshoe crab sex, volunteers in headlamps and waders will tally up the amorous crabs.
Horseshoe crabs are weird, like armadillos of the sea. Their shells look like armored helmets and their tails resemble swords. And then there are the eyes. They have 10 of them — including one on that spiked tail that helps them tell time. Their strange design is time-tested; they haven't evolved much for more than 400 million years. We're talking before the dinosaurs — before flying insects, even.
If you're a female horseshoe crab, then it's your night. You'll swim to shore, meet a special someone and he'll clasp onto the back of your shell. You and he will crawl onto the beach together, where you'll spawn at high tide under the light of the full moon.
But the mate attached to your shell is not your only tryst. On this night, you will mate with up to 13 males, all at the same time. Thousands of horseshoe crabs will pile on top of one another, glistening shells covering the beach for miles.
"We just love the whole phenomena of how once a year, for a season, they do this incredible mating on the beach," Keith Rutter says. "I don't know how anybody can watch this and not get excited about nature and science and how things work in the world."
Rutter and his family didn't travel from Silver Spring, Md., to Delaware's Pickering Beach just to watch the orgy. They came here to count.
The Delaware Bay shore is the site of the largest horseshoe crab spawning in the world, but in the 1990s the horseshoe crab population in the bay plummeted. So on this night, at the world's epicenter of horseshoe crab sex, volunteers in headlamps and waders will tally up the amorous crabs.
Horseshoe crabs are weird, like armadillos of the sea. Their shells look like armored helmets and their tails resemble swords. And then there are the eyes. They have 10 of them — including one on that spiked tail that helps them tell time. Their strange design is time-tested; they haven't evolved much for more than 400 million years. We're talking before the dinosaurs — before flying insects, even.
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- groups:
- The Environment
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- tags:
- Environment, Animals
