#limulidae

[bennizone]

💜💜💜HORSESHOECRAB GIRL !!!! :-)💜💜💜

(blog-post about her creation)

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

horshoe crab!!

Have you seen a horseshoe crab (Family: Limulidae)?

I have now

Yes, in photos/videos

Yes, irl

I'm not sure

Voting ended onMar 16

The first photo is of a Chinese horseshoe crab, the second is of a group of Atlantic horseshoe crabs. There are four species of extant horseshoe crab. They are the only surviving xiphosurans.

[life-on-our-planet]

horseshoe crab walking on the beach ©

[saritawolf]

Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus) (c) SaritaWolf - please do not repost

[riverwoodcrafts]

God, what have you done? You’re a pink pony crab, and you scuttle at the club…

(Soon to be stickers)

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Can you do a backstroke? The horseshoe crab can! These creatures spend most of their time crawling along the ocean floor, but when they need to they can turn over and swim on their backs at a breakneck 0.54 kph (0.34 mph), using all six of their legs and the thick gills along their bellies-- called book gills-- to generate momentum.

(Image: An Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) by John Tlumacki)

If you like what I do, consider buying me a ko-fi!

[alphynix]

Tachypleus syriacus was a horseshoe crab from the late Cretaceous (~100-95 million years ago) of what is now Lebanon.

Closely related to modern tri-spine horseshoe crabs, it displayed a similar level of sexual dimorphism. Females grew to at least 25cm long (~10"), with rounded front edges to their carapaces and shorter rear spines, while males were around 30% smaller with a scalloped shape to the front of their carapaces.

One recently described female specimen also preserves distinctive nodules around the rim of its carapace, which may represent some sort of sensory structure.

This particular specimen is also unique for preserving a coprolite in the process of being expelled from the horseshoe crab's body – that's right, it died while pooping.

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References:

Bicknell, Russell DC, et al. "A unique example of the Late Cretaceous horseshoe crab Tachypleus syriacus preserves transitional bromalites." Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology (2024): 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2024.2348748

Bicknell, Russell DC, et al. "On the appendicular anatomy of the xiphosurid Tachypleus syriacus and the evolution of fossil horseshoe crab appendages." The Science of Nature 106.7 (2019): 38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-019-1629-6

Lamsdell, James C., and Scott C. McKenzie. "Tachypleus syriacus (Woodward)—a sexually dimorphic Cretaceous crown limulid reveals underestimated horseshoe crab divergence times." Organisms Diversity & Evolution 15 (2015): 681-693. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-015-0229-3

[pochqmqri]

Baby horseshoe crab at the Glen Echo Park Aquarium in Glen Echo Park, Maryland