Scientists seek more protections for ‘living fossil’
- February 15, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Scientists seek more protections for ‘living fossil’
Subject: Environment
Section: Species in news
Context:
- Environmental groups are advocating for endangered species protection for the American horseshoe crab, citing threats from commercial exploitation, habitat loss, and climate change.
Details:
- These ancient marine arthropods, not true crabs but closer to spiders and scorpions, have seen significant population declines, particularly in the Delaware Bay, once their largest habitat.
- Overfishing for biomedical use, where their unique blue blood is harvested, along with use as bait, has contributed to a sharp decrease in numbers.
- This decline also affects other species reliant on horseshoe crab eggs for food, such as the Rufa red knot bird.
- The petition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) seeks both protection under the Endangered Species Act and the establishment of critical habitats for their preservation.
About 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.
Source: TH