Now, an influential United States group has abandoned plans to list a synthetic alternative, called recombinant Factor C rFC , alongside the tried and true blue fluid, reports John Miller for Reuters. The move by medical standards group U. Pharmacopeia USP would have given rFC equal standing with crab blood, which has long been the industry standard for testing, per Reuters.
Many expected the alternative test to be approved for widespread use as it was in Europe by the European Pharmacopeia , per the Times. For drug makers in the U. In , the blood harvest drained a third of the vital fluids from nearly , crabs in the U.
But there is hope: in the late s biologists at the University of Singapore realised that a synthetic alternative could be created in a lab by cloning a molecule in the crab blood. Some governments, including the Japanese and Chinese, have approved the rFc test for use. It is likely that a new Covid test manufactured in the UK will use synthetic ingredients, which are also approved by the European Union. Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company developing one of the biggest potential Covid vaccines, said they won't be using crab blood in their jab.
There's a catch in this story. Synthetic ingredients and alternative tests are not yet widely used in some countries. For instance, America still bleeds many crabs every year. A small percentage of them die after being bled, although medicine producers are becoming ever more careful about keeping population numbers healthy. It's also arguable medicine manufacturers aren't the biggest problem facing horseshoe crabs: in America many more are killed for fishing bait and lots are struggling in Asia because their habitat is disappearing.
Synthetic alternatives to horseshoe crab blood have been developed. The American horseshoe crab is not considered endangered although it is classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and the number of crabs caught is monitored.
American regulators and manufacturers also created guidance on how to reduce the number of crabs killed during the bleeding process, which is helping. Some crab populations are now increasing, although others are still struggling. Some medicine companies have started sustainability programmes that rescue eggs from crabs that have been caught for bait. The eggs are fertilised, raised in a hatchery and released back into the ocean to try to keep population numbers stable.
The story in Asia is less promising. Crab mating grounds are being destroyed more quickly by rising sea levels and building work. The tri-spine horseshoe crab is classified as endangered. It is locally extinct in Taiwan , and may soon disappear from Hong Kong. The other two Asian horseshoe crab species are not thriving either. In the IUCN and other conservation groups around the world called for stronger rules to protect horseshoe crabs, more scientific research, and better protections for their coastal habitat.
There is hope yet - and it perhaps won't be long until we can phase out the use of crab blood for good. In the run up to the global UN conferences of COP15 on biodiversity and COP26 on climate change, join us as we debate why and how our relationship with the natural world needs to change.
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Change cookie preferences Accept all cookies. Skip to content. Read later. You don't have any saved articles. Though the horseshoe crab's shell is hard, it is very sensitive to the world around it.
The crabs are especially sensitive to light. They have 10 eyes, a pair of compound eyes on the prosoma, and "photo receptors" in other areas, primarily along the tail.
Instead, gently pick it up by both sides of the prosoma using both hands. Horseshoe crabs are known to gather in large nesting aggregations, or groups, on beaches particularly in the mid-Atlantic states such as Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland in the spring and summer, where their populations are largest.
Horseshoe crabs can nest year-round in Florida, with peak spawning occurring in the spring and fall. The male fertilizes the eggs as the female lays them in a nest in the sand. Some males called satellite males do not attach to females but still have success in fertilizing the female's eggs by hanging around the attached pair. Most nesting activity takes place during high tides around the time of a new or full moon.
Horseshoe crab larvae emerge from their nests several weeks after the eggs are laid. Juvenile horseshoe crabs look a lot like adults except that their tails are smaller. The young and adult horseshoe crabs spend most of their time on the sandy bottoms of inter-tidal flats or zones above the low tide mark and feed on various invertebrates. Horseshoe crabs are an important part of the ecology of coastal communities. Their eggs are the major food source for shorebirds migrating north, including the federally-threatened red knot.
These shorebirds have evolved to time their migrations to coincide with peak horseshoe crab spawning activity, especially in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay areas. They use these horseshoe crab beaches as a gas station, to fuel up and continue their journey. Many fish species as well as birds feed on horseshoe crab eggs in Florida. Adult horseshoes serve as prey for sea turtles, alligators, horse conchs, and sharks. Horseshoe crabs are also extremely important to the biomedical industry because their unique, copper-based blue blood contains a substance called "Limulus Amebocyte Lysate", or "LAL".
This compound coagulates or clumps up in the presence of small amounts of bacterial toxins and is used to test for sterility of medical equipment and virtually all injectable drugs.
Anyone who has had an injection, vaccination, or surgery has benefited from horseshoe crabs! Additionally, research on the amazing and complex compound eyes of horseshoe crabs has led to a better understanding of human vision.
Horseshoe crabs are also used in several fisheries.
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