Chinese name: 中华鲎

Latin name: Tachypleus tridentatus

English name: Horseshoe crab

Alias:  

Level of protection: State second-class protection

 

The horseshoe crab is an ancient creature that lived on the earth more than 300 million years ago and still retains its shape. It is an ancient member of the ocean. It is the same age as the trilobites animal. Although undergo the vicissitudes of hundreds of millions of years of change, but the species remains the same, little change. So they are called "bio-living fossil" .

 

The horseshoe crab is made up of three parts: the shell of head and chest is horseshoe-shaped (so named horseshoe crab), the abdomen is hexagonal with spines on both sides, the tail is a long tail sword. Horseshoe crab live in shallow sea sandy seabed. carnivorous animals, feeding annelids and mollusks, etc，and sometimes feeding seaweed algae. Chinese horseshoe crab have a long growth period , take nearly 13 years to complete breeding. The blood of the horseshoe crab is blue because it contains copper ions. Distribution in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

 

Peeling

Horseshoe crab like other arthropods, is husked and then grow. From a shell about 1.3-1.4 times the size than before, but the mortality rate is high.

 

"The sea couple"

China's horseshoe crabs in China's Fujian coast can reproduce from late April to late August each year. Usually after sunset, in the tide of the beach lay eggs. When the tide , the male horseshoe clutching female horseshoe crab climbing on the beach digging spawning. Male and female once married, they inseparable, hypertrophy female China's horseshoe often carrying thin husband. At this point to catch a horseshoe crab can catch a pair, so horseshoe crab have the reputation of  "the sea couple".