I was excited to use part of a horseshoe crab that I found on a beach back in New England many years ago, as the back for my latest creation - the Tyrrhenian Throne. I didn’t know anything about horseshoe crabs so off I went to the internet to be educated. I learned that the part of the crab I have is called the Opisthosoma - the abdomen carapace where the crab has its gills and the tail is attached - it’s back end in other words! Horseshoe crabs are Arthropods, not really crabs at all. They are more closely related to spiders and scorpions - aargh! BUT, they don’t sting or bite us so are quite harmless to us. Phew! Like other creatures with hard exoskeletons they must molt in order to grow and so they shed their carapace periodically. That’s usually what you and I find washed up on the beach. Horseshoe crabs can live up to 20 years, and have as many as 16 or 17 molts. They live along the East coast of North America, and the East coast of Asia.
Here’s my opisthosoma - try saying that three times fast! I topped it with a spiral shell (turittella). All painted with metallic copper paint.
Now for the ”WOW!” part. Did you know that horseshoe crabs have blue blood? No, it’s not because they are “royal” (haha, they wish!) but because they have copper based blood, as opposed to iron based blood like us. I thought this was very exciting - until I read more about it and discovered that their blood is used by the biomedical industry to test for toxins in medicine like vaccines. Apparently a compound in their blood called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) clumps in the presence of minuscule amounts of bacterial toxins. Well, that seems like a useful thing right? And yes, for us it is. However, for the poor horseshoe crabs it’s not such a happy story. A quart of Horseshoe crab blood can be worth as much as $15,000 so they are harvested in their thousands. The crabs are hauled from the bottom of the sea, tossed into trucks, and transported for up to 24 hours to biomedical bleeding facilities where their blood can be taken. Once there they are milked of up to 40% of their blood. Many die from either being crushed/damaged during transportation, from the bleeding process, or die later when they are tossed back in the ocean. A horseshoe crab needs to breathe in water, but they don’t get to do that after they are removed from the sea for bleeding. Hypoxia (lack of oxygen) is a problem. Unsurprisingly, abnormal behavior, including the inability to spawn, has been observed in horseshoe crabs after they have been bled and returned to the sea. Reading this I immediately imagined how I would feel if someTHING took me from my natural habitat to a place where I could barely breathe, drained 40% of my blood and then threw me back!
Seeing the pictures of rows of horseshoe crabs suspended over their jars of milky blue blood was so horrific that I didn’t want to use my horseshoe crab part after all. I almost threw it away. But then I thought some more, and decided to make my throne a monument to the Horseshoe crab. I was originally going to use it au naturel - it was a dull grey brown color, instead I painted it copper to make it look beautiful and valuable.
Horseshoe crabs are a keystone species, which means that a lot of other animals depend on them to survive and maintain the environment. Sadly, with upwards of 50,000 dying each year in service to us, their numbers are being depleted. I wondered if we could manufacture a blood alternative - and yes, in fact one was developed over 10 years ago! Because of depleted numbers and more environmental protection the biomedical industry are finally getting on board with the idea of using the alternative. Horseshoe Crabs have been around for 300 million years. Hopefully, soon, horseshoe crabs will be able to live their lives in relative peace for another 300 million.
Anyway, next time you get a flu shot (or maybe the Coronavirus vaccine!) remember that horseshoe crabs gave their precious blue blood so that you are not poisoned by injectable medicines.
Here is my merman Kai, enjoying his new throne. I think he looks pretty happy with it.