1. Horseshoe Crabs! Mollie Phelps

2. Horseshoe Crabs • Enjoy living in shallow salt water with sandy floors • They burrow in the sand and scavenge for food • Delaware bay is the largest spawning area for horseshoe crabs in the world! A photo of my pet horseshoe crab ‘Seabiscuit’ photo credit: Tony Rossignuolo

3. Horseshoe Crabs: Living Fossils • Horseshoe crabs are closely related to trilobites which have not existed in 544 million years • Horseshow Crabs are not crabs at all they are related to spiders and crustaceans but are in a class all their own: merostoma • There are four different species of horsehoe crab, although they look similar and are similar they live in different regions of the world. http://horseshoecrab.org/nh/species.html

4. Medical Uses! Medical Uses! • Horseshoe crabs have special blood that is used to test if harmful pathogens are present in vaccines and other IV drugs, • Horse crab blood reacts to pathogens that do not die in steam cleaning. • Horseshoe crabs are bled and then returned to the ocean and there blood regenerates. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/117213/The-horseshoe-crab-has-compound-eyes-that-appear-to-have

5. References: • http://horseshoecrab.org/med/med.html • http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/117213/The-horseshoe-crab-has-compound-eyes-that-appear-to-have