Peeps in the world are aware their wellbeing may one day depend on a blue-blooded crab that looks like a cross between the facehugger from Alien and a gigantic louse. Fewer still realise this ancient creature now faces its greatest threat in more than 450m years.
The American horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs and has survived four previous mass extinctions, but is now menaced by the pharmaceutical industry, fishing communities, habitat loss, climate change and, most recently, choking tides of red algae off the east coast of the United States.
Abundant three decades ago, this living fossil, which is actually more closely related to spiders than crabs, was put on the vulnerable list by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 2016. Scientists say the crab’s decline symbolises the huge economic and health costs of biodiversity loss worldwide.
This will be underscored by a UN report this month that will show humanity is running down the natural capital of the Earth at a “startling” rate. Since 1992, more than 30% of the planet’s ecological wealth – the estimated value of species, forests, rivers and soil – has been lost, with profound consequences not just for conservation but for the health and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people.
To address this, many wildlife campaigns focus on pandas, tigers and other cute megafauna, but the biggest economic damage is being done to less charismatic species such as insects, worms, plants, fish and crabs.
The copper-based blood of the horseshoe crab is used to make the most sensitive indicator of bacteria ever discovered, limulus amoebocyte lysate. The lysate is vital to identifying contaminants in medical equipment before surgical operations, pacemaker fittings and many vaccinations.
theguardian.com
