Have you ever seen a horseshoe crab molt?
Who knew it takes a horseshoe crab four to eight weeks to molt? Certainly not me! Although I wish I had when I stumbled upon this guy the other day…
At first I thought it was two horseshoe crabs mating, and then a passerby asked me if it was molting. “Hmm”, I said to the stranger. “Could it be?”. So I lightly tapped the top shell . . . and guess what? It was hollow!
Thinking I was helping, I put the molting horseshoe crab back in the water — these guys, although they’ve been here since the age of the dinosaurs, are at their most vulnerable during the molting process — the tide was going out, and I was afraid he’d get beached.
And then I Google “how long does it take for a horseshoe crab to molt?”…
“The time it takes for a crab to complete a molt varies. As a general rule, the larger the crab, the longer the whole process will take. It is not unusual for an average-sized crab to spend about four to eight weeks going through the whole process, during which time it may stay completely buried in the sand.”
I sure wish I would have thought to do this from the beach. More importantly, I hope I didn't shorten his life span by dragging him back into the water… Now I know for next time.
