First-response blood of horseshoe crabs

[bixaorellana]

Although horseshoe crabs are not really crabs!

Click text below for the full article & video.

Our blood is red because we use hemoglobin to move oxygen around. Hemoglobin has iron in it, which gives off a reddish hue. Horseshoe crabs use a copper-based molecule called hemocyanin to distribute oxygen. In nature, copper turns things blue or blue-green. So that's why their blood is blue; it's copper-based.

...when a horseshoe crab gets gashed and its insides are exposed to germs (particularly ocean-going bacteria), its blood leaps into action. As soon as it senses any "negative bacteria" moving in, a particular blood cell explodes, releasing a mass of blood-clotting granules that instantly clot to seal out the bad guys, preventing further infection.

In 1968, scientist Fred Bang was able to extract cells from the horseshoe crab and use the active ingredient to test drugs, products and devices that come into contact with blood, including human blood. ... All of a sudden, horseshoe crab blood became valuable.

Atlantic coast fishermen would catch crabs, remove blood, sell the serum to pharmaceutical companies (one quart is worth more than $10,000) and then return the animals to the bay. This has become a successful business ...

And a little more info on these prehistoric creatures: life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/westmeadow/horseshoe.html

[Deleted]

Fascinating!! I did know that horseshoe crabs were not truly crabs because I lost a bet many years ago about that. Have still never heard the end of that one...
I've always been fascinated by them and I actually have a dried preserved horseshoe crab in my house on one of the walls.
One sees them washed ashore up on Long Island all the time.
They have always reminded me of army tanks.
Thanks for this. I know T. will be fascinated by it too.

[lugg]

Well I have learnt lots from your post Bixa , thanks
The blue blood looks pretty strange.I must say I was a bit shocked by the numbers that died following theextractions, but it appears that this is less than the numbers killed when they were harvested for bait.

Having been around for 450 billion years they deserve some love

Also I checked on the meaning of serendipity and found a good way of explaining it

Serendipity ... is like looking for a needle in a haystack and coming out with it and the farmer's daughter

[Deleted]

The term "prehistoric creatures" applied to animals that are still alive always disturbs me a bit. The fact that certain animals have survived basically unchanged for so long indicates that they got things right a long time ago so we should possibly find a more glorious name for them.