Horseshoe Crab Blue Blood
Still they have survived because of their hard curved shells.
Horseshoe crab blue blood. Behind its legs the horseshoe crab has book gills which exchange respiratory gases and are also occasionally used for swimming. As in other arthropods a true. A comprehensive exploration of horseshoe crab natural history anatomy and conservation. Contains research and educational material plus collections of poems images.
Heres how one drug developer harvests horseshoe crabs and turns their blood into tests for impurities in pharmaceuticals. The horseshoe crab limulus polyphemus is a living fossil. Forms almost identical to this species were present during the trias. The blood of the horseshoe crab is blue due to the copper based oxygen carrying protein hemocyanin see image.
The amebocytes can be seen as the white pellet at the. You dont survive for 450 million years without learning a trick or two. In the case of horseshoe crabs one of those is developing blood with remarkable a. Horseshoe crabs common along the delaware coast have evolved little in the last 250 million years.