Horseshoe crabs

Horseshoe crabs

Subject :Environment

Section: Species in news

Context: Horseshoe crabs disappearing off Odisha has scientists alarmed.

More on the News:

• Horseshoe crabs, medicinally priceless and one of oldest living creatures on the earth, appear to be disappearing from their familiar spawning grounds along Chandipur and Balaramgadi coast in Odisha’s Balasore district.
• Scientists have urged Odisha government to immediately come up with a robust protection mechanism before the living fossil becomes extinct due to destructive fishing practices.
• Palaeontological studies say the age of Horseshoe crabs is 450 million years. The creature has lived on earthy without undergoing any morphological change. Scientists are surprised to find strong immune system in animal that helped it survive millions of years. The animal is critical for human health. If we don’t put any efforts now, Horseshoe crabs would not be found in India in next few years.

Horseshoe crabs

• Horseshoe crabs are ancient marine arthropods that have been around for more than 450 million years. They are found in shallow waters along the Atlantic coast of North America and in the Gulf of Mexico and are known for their unique appearance, with a hard exoskeleton and a long, pointed tail.
• The crabs are represented by four extant species in the world. Out of the four, two species are distributed along the northeast coast of India.
• Only T gigas species of the horseshoe crab is found along Balasore coast of Odisha.
• The crab was included in the Schedule IV of the Wild (Life) Protection Act, 1972, under which, the catching and killing of a horseshoe crab is an offence.
• Horseshoe crabs play an important ecological role as a food source for migratory shorebirds and other animals, and their eggs are an important food source for fish and other marine animals.
• Horseshoe crabs are also important to the biomedical industry because of their blue blood, which contains a substance called Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) that is used to test for bacterial contamination in medical equipment and vaccines. It is such an important animal that all COVID-19 vaccines were tested against blood of Horseshoe crabs to ascertain if the vaccine was free from any contamination.
• However, horseshoe crab populations have been in decline in recent years due to overharvesting for bait and biomedical purposes, habitat loss, and pollution.
• Conservation efforts have been undertaken to protect horseshoe crab populations, including regulations on harvesting, habitat restoration, and research into alternatives to LAL testing.