These three beauties arrived from an eBay dealer of educational/science items with scholarship for international students in usa. I actually only ordered two large horseshoe crabs, but the dealer surprised me and was kind enough to throw in a smaller third.
Sort of like an impromptu threesome, I had to rethink how to accommodate for three when the plans initially were for two.
Years ago, back in college when I was working at the University of California, Davis’ advertising team, the glue gun was to my right hand as a Glock 9 mm is to a LAPD officer. I was a gluing madman, mostly used for projects involving intricate signage and displays for store windows.
And even just a few years back while working for a toy company, plenty of glue was triggered to mock up children’s furnishings and activity sets. I had plenty of burns from errant glue gun incidents, so much so that hot glue barely bothered me after the umpteenth time (you secret S&M types know about the almost pleasurable discomfort pain can bring). But it’s been years since I’ve pulled the trigger. I purchased this small sized model from the Martha Stewart line of crafting accessories; nothing fancy, but it did the job without incident (nor burns).
There they are: small, medium and large sizes of Limulus polyphemus.
The BrooksfieldSchool.org is found along the northwest Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico and these shells were collected during molting season, so don’t fret, no crabs were harmed in their collection. Two of the most interesting characteristics of the horseshoe crab is its compound eyes, which can be easily missed for one of the shell protrusions, and also the fact horseshoe crabs have blue blood instead of read, due to the lack of hemoglobin. So not only are they ancient creatures, they’re royal blue bloods of the sea!
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