It's mating season!
Category: Organisms
Posted on: June 17, 2007 5:38 PM, by PZ Myers
Oooooh, with lots of pictures. I hope you're into chitin and legs.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Search
Profile
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
Random Quote
(Complete listing)The big mistake Bill Clinton made was showing up for the Paula Jones civil suit. I’ll bet that wasn’t Hillary’s idea.
Recent Posts
- Soldiers with attitude
- Nice lecture
- A little light of reason shines in Indiana
- Excuses, excuses
- Orac on Gupta
- First out of the starting gates: Oklahoma!
- The ways of the Bush administration are inscrutable and stupid
- Unclear on the concept
- The scientist in the white coat
- I'm not so sure about this pick
A Taste of Pharyngula
(Complete listing)Symmetry breaking and genetic assimilation
Digit numbering and limb development
Two-legged goats and developmental variation
Recent Comments
- H.H. on Soldiers with attitude
- Archaneus on Soldiers with attitude
- Chad on Soldiers with attitude
- Calton Bolick on The ways of the Bush administration are inscrutable and stupid
- Brownian, OM on Unclear on the concept
- JM Inc. on Unclear on the concept
- J. A. Baker on I'm in good company
- Auguste on Soldiers with attitude
- fly44d on A little light of reason shines in Indiana
- Zarquon on Unclear on the concept
Archives
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
Blogroll
(Complete listing)Other Information
Subscribe via Email
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Sometimes, fence-sitting is the domain of the crazy, too | Main | How desperate can they get? »
TrackBacks
(TrackBack URL for this entry: )
Comments
I love arthropods. These horseshoe crabs are awesome!
Posted by: DCP | June 17, 2007 5:54 PM
Here in Thailand, they eat the eggs in a spicy salad. They're kinda chewy. Apparently, though, there's at least one similar-looking species whose eggs can kill you, so you gotta know how to identify them.
A few weeks ago, PZ had a post about spider sex. It looks like those crabs do it the same way as spiders.
Posted by: ken | June 17, 2007 7:36 PM
I imagine it must be pretty amazing to witness some of these crawling out of the sea, totally unexpected!
A few weeks ago, PZ had a post about spider sex. It looks like those crabs do it the same way as spiders.
The thing is, they're not crabs at all and are, in fact, much closer to spiders than to any crustacean. Horseshoe crabs are chelicerates (as are spiders), members of the class Xiphosura.
Posted by: Tizo | June 17, 2007 8:28 PM
If you have horseshoe crab sightings, don't forget to list them officially.
Posted by: Jason | June 17, 2007 9:27 PM
@Jason: (#4)
i've had the carapace of the cephalothorax of a pretty large horseshoe crab for quite while. a bunch came up on the shore of our local waterway here when i was a kid, and i collected it then. i haven't seen one since. very odd. if i had a date, i'd add it...
Posted by: arachnophilia | June 18, 2007 12:23 AM
Ugh. I had a dream recently that i had horseshoe crabs crawling over me.
Posted by: Brian W. | June 18, 2007 12:57 AM
These little guys are wonderful little biochemical magicians. When they are injured, their amoebocytes surround the wound and trap bacteria in a viscous gel. In my field of analytical chemistry, we use the limulus amoebocytes from their blue blood to detect the endotoxins of gram-negative bacteria.
Analytical chemists used to test injectible drugs for batercial endotoxins by injecting rabbits with it. If the rabbit got a fever, the product wasn't sterile. The poor rabbit had to endure the injection, the possibility of fever, and worst of all, frequent anal temperature measurements. Limulus has probably saved many a rabbit much misery.
Posted by: HPLC_Sean | June 18, 2007 11:12 AM