Each year, more than half a Million horseshoe crabs are caught – your blood is important for drug research. In Asia, they are considered a delicacy, their habitat shrinks, the animals are endangered.
In the waters along the East coast of the United States and some East Asian countries, a species that seems to stand so resolutely against any change lives, that it can be referred to as a living Fossil. The speech is cancers of the arrow tail.
“They are crawling between the legs of dinosaurs. And lived 150 million years on earth,” says John Tanacredi. The Professor at Molloy College in New York is regarded as a proven expert in the field of this amazing species, of which many probably have never heard of.
“The mass extinction 65 million years ago the dinosaurs of the earth are gone, both on Land and in the water. Even more remarkable is that these animals have survived,” said Tanacredi.
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In the case of the arrow tail cancers are not really cancers. It also arthropods, but they are more closely related to spiders.
Horseshoe crabs belong to the so-called pine-mouth makers, a group of arthropods that has no antennae or antennas, but instead via special Clamps.
Her appearance alone makes the animals Special. They can be about 60 centimeters tall, have shells and helmet-like on the outside and five pairs of legs. The mouth is located in the center of the body and over the body several eyes.
The mystery of the blue blood
Researches that have dealt with the ten eyes of the arrow tail cancers, were awarded the 1967 Nobel prize for medicine. Even more remarkable, however, is that the creatures can save lives. Already in 1956, studies showed that their bright blue blood is rich in Amöbozyten, so cells that respond to toxins. This means that the blood of horseshoe crabs can be used for the Limulus-Amöbozyten-Lysate-Test (LAL). The Test comes today in the case of drug studies.
The man with the arrow tail cancers just squeamish – if you survive always seems to be important
The discovery of the life-saving properties has a huge industry, every year more than half a Million animals along the Atlantic coast are caught.
Subject of animal testing: These methods could replace animal experiments
The man’s not squeamish. Collectors pick up the animals when they crawl to the Hatch on Land. You are brought into laboratories and there with a needle on my heart pricks, and then about a third of your blood to bleed. Then you bring them back.
Since each drug, which is now certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), must be tested using LAL, the blood extremely. This should lead to the fact that everything is done to secure the Survival of the species. Both in the USA as well as in Asia. However, it is not that simple.
The bright blue blood of the crayfish is particularly important for medical research because it responds very quickly to toxins
There are a lot of threats
Apart from the fact that largely it is unclear what harm the animals suffer at the time of blood sampling, or what happened to them when they are released back to the water, there are other threats: horseshoe crabs are used by Aalfischern as bait, their habitats, eroding, slowly but surely, and in Asia, they are increasingly becoming a sought-after delicacy.
“In China, the land animals, mainly on the plate,” says Glenn Gauvry, founder of the Ecological Research and Development Group (GR).
Before they are eaten, will you siphoned her blood. The pharmaceutical industry in Asia used Tachypleus-Amöbozytenlysat (VALLEY). In principle, it is the same as LAL, but comes from a different kind of arrow tail cancer. Rather than back into the sea, let the animals in the connector to the wire for the food market and slaughtered.
“We add to the loss of marine and terrestrial habitat, then we see a serious Problem for the three species in Asia,” says Gauvry.
In view of these developments, the world conservation Union (IUCN) classified the animals in the year 2016 as being at risk. In other words, After you have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, the horseshoe crabs are now facing their ultimate challenge in the form of the people.
In Asia the animals are caught and tapped, and then you land back in the water, but on the plate
Change in the perception
You pay moderate decline also affects migratory birds like the red Knot, a species in the family of the woodcocks. This feed during the breeding season of horseshoe crabs whose eggs. This happens over a period of several weeks in early summer, when millions of animals on Land to crawl.
Glenn Gauvry has witnessed this event several times in his town of Little Creek to the Delaware Bay. Most of the horseshoe crabs breed. By the help of which he made with his group GROUND for animals after oil Spills, he realized that no one had the protection of the horseshoe crabs on the screen. The provision of information on its Website, it was thanks to, among other things, that the Public is curious about the unusual water inhabitants.
The subject of Evolution: which came first?
“Before, horseshoe crabs were despised, more or less,” says Gauvry of the DW. “They came to Spawn on the beach and died there in large numbers. So you have attracted stink and insects.”
It was not uncommon to be hired in the coastal municipalities, contractors and said that they dig a large pit and all of the horseshoe crabs to throw in, no matter whether alive or dead. “There were no rules,” says Gauvry.
A solution for a more sustainable use of the living fossils might be the controlled breeding
The role of technology
In the meantime, a lot has changed. Not least by groups like the GROUND-floor, prompting everyone to make the harmless animals on the legs, should you find one lying on the back.
Also, some of the breeding sites at the Delaware Bay have been protected by fences, thus less animals are killed during the spawning period.
Is not the danger but still. Efforts to develop synthetic substitutes for the VALLEY-Test in Asia, fail to bureaucratic hurdles. And also in the Aalfischern it’s stuck. You say that you have no suitable Alternative, and the crabs are dependent.
Not true, say Anthony and Kristen Dellinger. The couple is for the nano-technology companies Kepley Biosystems, South Carolina, where hundreds of thousands of animals of their blue blood.
Endangered species: the Return of lost species?
Both work on the improvement of an already existing synthetic lure to him for fishing for eels. In addition, you will develop a Krebsei, the taste of the migratory birds. And you see opportunities for the breeding of horseshoe crabs.
A controlled rearing “would make it possible to keep the animals long in good health,” said Anthony Dellinger. And he adds that it would also benefit the industry. “You could often harvest blood, but less. So far, this happens only once in a year at spawning time, it must have been caught many animals and give them a considerable amount of blood to be taken.”
“Everything that horseshoe crabs do follow a goal. And the objective is to Survive,” says Glenn Gauvry. “They can adapt very well to all sorts of things. But we humans bring to rapid changes. So, we are and will remain the big challenge for horseshoe crabs.”
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