Drama at the beach

I’m at the beach (the beach!) and it’s September, and there was a storm recently, so things have been quite chilly and windy and sploshy. Monday morning, I went out for a walk before starting my day of remote work, and I saw this horseshoe crab, and it was moving.

I am told by the friend whose beach house this is that her relatives are thrilled to hear a report of a moving horseshoe crab. Most of the horseshoe crabs they’ve seen in these parts are just bits, like a piece of shell or that tail-thing that sticks out behind, or if they’re whole, they’re dead or mostly dead.

This horseshoe crab was very much not dead.

This horseshoe crab was chugging along. I took a video and, while I could probably upload it here, I am writing this on an inconvenient device at a beach house, so I will instead direct you to the link at YouTube: Drama at the Beach.

If you know two facts about horseshoe crabs, they are probably (1) that their blood is used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and (2) they are “living fossils” – there were horseshoe crabs 445 million years ago. So long ago.

So I suppose horseshoe crabs have been doing this sort of thing basically forever, since before there were dinosaurs. Thanks for letting me hang out for a few minutes of the journey, friend.