Horseshoe crabs have been described as “living fossils”, having changed little since they first appeared in the Triassic around 250 million years ago, and similar-looking fossil xiphosurans extend back to the Ordovician around 445 million years ago.
If you extend the truth a bit. :)
Millions of years from now, they tell each other tales of the brief flicker of time when primates with delusions of grandeur captured them and drained them of their blood. But the primates aren’t around anymore. Nothing is, besides the horseshoe crab, watching the remains of the oceans dry up, as the sun grows larger and larger in the sky.
Remember when red blood was all the rage?
Oh man, that fad takes me back
Existed for millions of years before horses. Named after hunks of metal nailed to horse hooves.
What did they call them before horseshoes?
Wendy. Wendy Crabs.
I don’t know, I’ve never asked them.
I met one called Dave once. Lovely guy
Oh dear god. I’ve never bothered to read much into the anatomy of horseshoe crabs until today, and I had no idea they have an array of photoreceptors along their telson (the long, tail-like segment). That’s so creepy.
there’s something about non-fishy, non-mammalian sea creatures that makes them have photoreceptors fucking everywhere. look at starfish or some octopuses for example. or any other genus really
Eyes on thier tail? Nature be cray
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” in animal form
Why bother? I’ll just end up re-carcinizing later.
Yep, evolution always ends in crabs.
If you are already there, why bother?
I looked it up once if they really haven’t changed at all since the earliest fossils, and they actually have - just not by very much.
I looked up to see how these suckers taste, and they’re actually pretty gross looking inside, idk I’m adventurous but I think I may have found my limit
They’re used a lot for industry medicine. Thier blood is harvested and then theyre released.
So you might have already had a taste!
These are the ones with the blue blood? I remember seeing a video on it. They hook them up suck some blood out and put them back.
Don’t they die from this anyway?
No, they retire to a nice aquarium upstate.
I’m sure some do
I’m an adventurous eater and I would definitely eat that, but there are only a handful of things I won’t try.
I always told myself “crickets are my limit” any more legs than that and I’m out
Horseshoe crabs got it alllll figured out.
and didn’t even need a cortex to do so
Michaelangelo was but a baboon with a brush in his gooch compared to the likes of your artistry.
props for the detail of pointing the crab’s head back to talk to the other crab
Crocs did it better
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They always creep me out
