HORSESHOE CRABS MOTHERFUCKER!

So I was asked to make a post about these amazing little fuckers

Horseshoe Crabs are the shit! There are so many reasons these scuttly little bastards are the best things in the ocean!

This is one of mine

This is Craig, say hi to Craig everyone, he's a little one, but he's gonna get a lot bigger

LOOK AT THOSE BASTARDS!

They can grow up to about 60 cm long including the tail (that's 24 inches for you Americans and your weird measuring system) and 1.8kg. This one here weighed 5kg, she's a bigass one. And yes, definitely a female, female Horseshoe crabs are typically much larger than the males, as is common in invertebrates.

THESE LITTLE FUCKERS AIN'T CRABS!

Nope, they look like crabs, but they aren't crustaceans at all, they're actually Xiphosurans, an order of marine Chelicerates. What else is in the Chelicerata subphylum? Arachnids! Yes, these things are most closely related to scorpions and spiders, but they're a hell of a lot less creepy. Their bodies are weird, they've got seven pairs of legs (two more hidden in there), their tail doesn't have a sting like you'd think, it's used as a rudder and to flip itself back over, and then there's it's eyes...

EYES FOR DAYS!

These fuckers have ten eyes, or at least, ten visual organs. The two main eyes on the sides of the head are more what most would traditionally think of as an eye, they're compound eyes kinda like a fly would have. Behind those are the lateral eyes, primitive little things which are basically little more than just photoreceptors, one of the most basic light detecting sensory cells. It has much the same for the ventral, endoparietal and median eyes, while there are a number of photoreceptors running down the tail, so yes, they can see out of their tail. Just not very well, all of their eyes are pretty poor since they're so primitive. Why? Well..

THESE THINGS ARE FUCKING OLD!

We live in the Holocene period, the Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. These little fuckers were first found in the Ordovician period, 450 MILLION YEARS AGO! And they haven't really changed since then from what we can tell. There are currently four extant species, Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda, Limulus polyphemus, Tachypleus gigas and Tachypleus tridentatus.

So, why should you care? What have Horseshoe Crabs ever done for you?

Actually, a shit ton. Have you had a vaccination of any kind in the last forty years? Have you used an injectable drug developed in the last forty years? Then you owe a Horseshoe Crab some thanks.

You see that blue stuff, that's it's blood, yeah, literally blue blood, this is because unlike in vertebrates it includes no hemoglobin, but rather it has hemocyanin to carry oxygen and hemocyanin contains copper. It also doesn't contain any white blood cells like we do, instead it uses cells in the blood called amebocytes to attack any pathogens that made their way into the body, it does this by making a kinda physical barrier inside itself.

When a Mr Frederick Bang (best scientist name ever, Professor Bang) found this out, and medical science caught wind of his discovery they devised a new medical test. To make sure any vaccination or injectable drug is safe they will introduce the amebocytes to a sample and if the physical barrier forms then they've encountered bacteria and the product isn't ready yet (This is a simplified version).

This has been an FDA mandatory test for all drugs and vaccines since the 1970s.

Plus they make friends with disabled Doggos

And if that's not a reason to care then fuck me, I don't know what is.

GPO Tax

This is our Giant Pacific Octopus, her name is Noodle. Noodle is a cunt who bit Jeffrey.