{"id":33549,"date":"2021-05-27T08:51:46","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T12:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=33549"},"modified":"2021-05-27T08:51:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T12:51:46","slug":"horseshoe-crab-migration-arriving-on-maryland-shores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2021\/05\/27\/horseshoe-crab-migration-arriving-on-maryland-shores\/","title":{"rendered":"Horseshoe Crab Migration Arriving on Maryland Shores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Annual Event Spawns New Generation of \u2018Living Fossils\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"PhotoMaryland\u2019s shores welcome back the annual return of the horseshoe crab<\/a> – <\/span>Limulus polyphemus<\/span><\/i> — in one of the world\u2019s oldest and largest wildlife migrations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For an estimated 350 million years, these prehistoric creatures<\/a> have migrated into Maryland\u2019s coastal bays from their winter habitats to spawn along the coastline and subtidal habitats. Although called \u201ccrabs\u201d they are in fact arthropods.<\/span><\/p>\n

The height of horseshoe crabs spawning revolves around late spring and early summer high tides, culminating on or around each full and new moon in June.\u00a0 On average, one spawning female horseshoe crab will deposit 20,000 eggs into the sand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Biologists from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources<\/a> monitor the returning horseshoe crab population for ecological and scientific research<\/a> purposes.\u00a0 The department encourages the public to report any spawning activity and sightings of horseshoe crabs to the <\/span>Horseshoe Crab Volunteer Angler Survey.\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The horseshoe crab\u2019s blue copper-based blood is critical for biomedical research — the animals are collected by specially permitted fishing operations, have blood drawn in a biomedical facility, and then are released back into the water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, horseshoe crab eggs are a natural part of the diet for migratory shorebirds preparing to return to their summer nesting grounds in northern Canada.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite a horseshoe crab\u2019s armor and menacing tail, they are gentle creatures that do not bite or sting, and can only survive outside of water for a short amount of time. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annual Event Spawns New Generation of \u2018Living Fossils\u2019 Maryland\u2019s shores welcome back the annual return of the horseshoe crab – Limulus polyphemus — in one of the world\u2019s oldest and largest wildlife migrations.\u00a0 For an estimated 350 million years, these prehistoric creatures have migrated into Maryland\u2019s coastal bays from their winter habitats to spawn along  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,11,33],"tags":[4665,4933,3346,2958,3347],"class_list":["post-33549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","category-the-bay","tag-assateague-island","tag-atlantic-coastal-bays","tag-horseshoe-crab","tag-ocean-city","tag-spawning"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33549"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33560,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33549\/revisions\/33560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}