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During the warmer months, especially at night during the full moon, horseshoe crabs emerge from the sea to spawn. Waiting for them are teams of lab workers, who capture the horseshoe crabs by the hundreds of thousands, take them to labs, harvest their cerulean blood, then return them to the sea. Why? Elizabeth Cox illuminates the incredible properties of horseshoe crab blood.
Lesson by Elizabeth Cox, directed by Anton Bogaty.
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The ocean holds so many mysteries.
Too bad we are destroying it with pollution. I read somewhere that humanity knows more about the moon than the first 5% of the ocean surface.
Anne seahorses and horseradish
Anne and so many answers
I got u fam 1000th like
So witty and insightful.....
Humans: Hey, where ya'll goin'?
Crabs: Non' ya business.
Lol this got me
Lol!
humans: *take blood* my business now
Best comment.
Humans: and i took that personally
Horseshoe crabs to humans harvesting their blood: "Damn, why these mosquitoes so big"
Did you come back a year to fomment that on this video
jeremy
Indeed.
@@tameronica what a god
Hello recommended.
Udunno Meh
Indeed.
Thank you horseshoe crab who keeps me safe literally every day.
I don’t know what you mean, but i hope u get better soon.
Not literally
It’s because horseshoe crab blood is used to test if vaccines are infected with viruses.
They keep us safe but not for long if they keep taking there blood 😔(it kills most of them)
Renata Hayes they don’t lol they keep enough blood for them and release them and they don’t come back to the shore for many many years
It's amazing that they survived mass extinction and they can help us today but it's sad that so many are dying during harvesting. When the video first started I thought it was relatively harmless
QueenSugar what if we're the next mass extinction event!
Kazi Islam Hopefully.
+Kazi Islam, we seem to be one right now. The rate of extinction is currently way higher than it naturally appears to be. Scientists have begun naming our current geological age "anthropocene" (human age) because of this and other aspects of our impact on earth's ecosystem.
If we don't change things rapidly, we will be responsible for incredible extinction events.
sertaki We're not the only ones doing it though. It's been a known sign of mass extinction when large creatures of an ecosystem begin to die off and it's not just human causes, natural deaths across many large animals are happening quicker than they can reproduce (not that humans really are helping with that). These are the beginning sign of mass extinction if I recall correctly from my geology 101 class.
You have to admit humans are helping speed up that process.
The more we know, the more we want to know.
Thanks to Ted ed to bring such things to notice which we probably would not hear anywhere else.
Your Channel has nice animations too. I subscribed. Keep it up.
yeah. like how did they come across the knowledge of using hsc blood for medical purpose. Who's idea was it! it sounds so far fetched but seemingly they've been doing it for quite some time now ... @.@ I want answers NOW!
What a corny advertisement as a fellow youtube uploader im ashamed
Health Chronicle so true
A story to share. I was at the beach with my family in the morning, and we looked out at sea and saw hundreds of dead horseshoe crabs, later that day I picked one up by its tail, then buried it and marked its grave with a stick.
For further information:
- about a third of the blood is removed during harvesting
- the most devastating to the population was by far the fishing industry until finally regulations were introduced some time around 2000, until then millions (!!!) of Horseshoe crabs were taken each year as bait for US fisheries (exact numbers aren't available because no one monitored it)
- Horseshoe crabs aren't real crabs
- there's a couple of species, some of them live in Southeast Asia, the biggest population lives in Delaware though
Ah, and the blood is blue because it has copper instead of iron.
yes you are right and if you look at the marine fisheries reports in the states where they are protected, their populations are increasing.
In Southeast Asia we have horseshoe crab farm, not sure it same specie or not?
Hey thanks
looks like america is exist to doom us
Horseshoe crabs: *survive the mass extinction of dinosaurs*
Humans: fine,I'll do it myself
I remember when I was little my mom and I flipped over a horseshoe crab that was on it's back then we watched it return to the ocean, I was so proud of my horseshoe crab child.
My god what a beautiful story, I'm crying man
@1234 and it survived happy end
@@awesomeninja1311 then it died after being released back into the wild
When i found a couple of horseshoe crab when i was little, I brought them home and they died several days after that. Still feel bad of myself for that...
Ok
I wanna say something... Thank you horseshoe crabs.
SISYee a
You realize these animals were being taken against their will, right?
I feel terrible for these wonderful lil critters. Hope they come up with a synthetic version of horseshoe crab blood extract soon.
They were taken against their will, but saved lives. They were released too.
IT’S FOR THE GREATER GOOD !
Horseshoe crab: Vampires aren't real!
Scientists: Hold my beer.
Edited for spelling. My god, what have I done!?
Hold my testtubes
Schientists
S c h i e n t i s t
*S C H I E N T I S T S*
Shy Dentists, no mine is very outgoing
Sadly, the Horseshoe Crab has been moved to the Vulnerable Catagory.
Atleast it just vulnerable and not nearly extinct.
And they’ll be gone because of us
horseshoe crab: Vampires don't exis...
My Channel Has Only 1Video Just To Make You Happy last words
we are the vampires needing their blood
Fair enough
My Channel Has Only 1Video Just To Make You Happy Devils also don't exist...
*Look at mirror.
You know what....
HoHo!
Why don't the scientists who harvest horshoe blood also protect the beaches where the horshoe spawn? That would give the crabs a steady and safe area to spawn and the scientists a steady supply of crabs.
They do?
I'd imagine it's an issue of money. Who is going to buy the beach when the sciences are already drastically underfunded? How are you going to pass laws to protect it if commercial interests want it?
They do, you've never been chased off a beach by a guy in a lab coat brandishing a broom?
I can just imagine a very angry scientist running after someone on a beach shouting "LEAVE THE CRABS ALONE!" while wielding a microscope.
In some areas they are a protected species. Very strict rules about handling them etc.
Imagine that the horseshoe crabs actually go to an area where known and unknown prehistoric creatures hide. Like a single area hidden from humans where the old ways of the aquatic still exists.
And here we are messing it all up with killing the horseshoe crabs
Then I wish we never find where they go. Atleast that saves a lot of species from humans...
Wow i actually believed that when I was child
I wish. Just a tiny (or possibly not) area untouched by human development.
@@weychill1279 no you didn't your making fun of him
I am a student at a marine biology class and we sent letters to senators and other companies and told them about synthetic alternatives to LAL and how harvests of horseshoe crabs was not only affecting horseshoe crab populations and how it was also affecting a species of birds called the red knot which exclusively eat horseshoe crab eggs on their migrations anyway I was surprised you didn’t mention the red knot but still a awesome video
Hmmm lots of horseshoe crabs are dying after we drain their blood? Well ill be dammed who couldve guessed....
Shazzkid at least better than fishing where there is a 100% chance the caught fish will die
Chi yan Yu This isn't related to fishing...nobody is eating these crabs...
actually people do eat horseshoe crabs
WeSuckAt Games cool, buts that unrelated to the topic at hand
You said that nobody ate horseshoe crabs, so I corrected you.
In case anyone was wondering, LAL stands for limulus amebocyte lysate.
lol
@@User-nu6km just why?
lol
KHALIIL01 pretty sure they knew that those were 2 differenct acronyms?
No, it's Los Angeles Lakers!!!!
I saw a horseshoe crab shell on the beach while I was doing a beach cleanup for community work, it looked so freaky and it does look really ancient
I remember me and my sister would always go to the beach and use the dead horseshoe crab shells as helmets we once’s when put one on her head but it was still very much alive.
I use to play with them as a kid. West coast FL... creepy lil critters but totally harmless. I haven't seen them around in 20 yeas.... didn't know we milk their blood- 😬😢
Tammie R That breaks my heart😢
Same here, used to see them all the time on the islands off the gulf coast as a kid but that's been a few handful of years now 😐
Originally from Cape Coral here. I used to catch them too. Highlight of my childhood catch and releasing horseshoes, little sharks, and rays.
It's ashamed that they can survive the mass extinction of the freaking dinosaurs, but may not be able to survive us.
:(
Ivan Johnson well we are more precise and widespread than a commet tho you can't blame them but we also need them so stopping killing them is not a good idea either
Best way for a species to survive humanity- be completely useless and ordinary.
@@ypsawbones3646 WELL, if a comet were to drop to earth right now, bet most of us wouldn't survive it.
When they lay eggs they lay 20 patches with over 4,000 eggs tho
Poor crabs
2:00 Cool! That frame was used in another Ted Ed video!
When you're playing a minecraft modpack and you can automate everything except one resource.
We harvest Kabuto to battle and be the very best.
@@Absolute_Nothing The whole story of Pokémon Firered will be finished before I can evolve it ☹️☹️
Wow , horseshoe crabs are pretty neat. Thx for your blood. Hopefully we don't kill them all.
We most likely will, considering our utter dependance on them in medicine. Let's just hope we either find a way to restock their population or finally having a formula for a synthesized alternative.
KidKangaroo we are close to making a synthetic version of it so hopefully soon :)
One can only *hope* that we don't murder them all
with carbon dioxide been absorbed into the sea, sea getting more acidity than ever, they most likely goes extinct in near future =(
Jeffrey Kiu Shiu Liong but climate change and global warming is a hoax by the Chinese
I've seen some kids at a beach bashing a horseshoe crab with a basketball size rock. By the time I got there and stop them I found the horsecrabs body mangled and crushed. Those damn punks just stared at me like I did something wrong to them when I push them aside.
I hope we’ve found a way to keep these “life saving animals” alive by now.
Today I learned that horse shoe blood is apparently blue.
Lol and it's actually true.
Because they are K-ings of the ocean dawg
+I was here I AM MINDBLOWN!!!
Most molluscoids, including octopuses and squids, have blue blood. Fun fact: octopuses also have three hearts.
+Ilham Hijrah Mustaqim i learnt the 3 heart thing from Finding Dory...
not anly horshoe crabs, basically any crab or crustaceans have blue blod, because they use copper to bind oxygen. we mammals use iron.
Why can't we put trackers in them? Like we do with sharks.
Jagger C. How/where?
-babies are too small
-shed shell
Mi Les, I mean the adults we capture. We could but one under they shell (In the actual living part).
The problem is that horseshoe crabs die very soon after they spawn, meaning putting trackers on the adults wont help.
James Wampler, thanks. That makes sense.
+Jagger C. This things get to surface only when entering beach so tracking device is useless as water absorbs signal. It works on sharks, whales and similar animals because they surface to get air and that is when tracking devices send signals.
Why is this important information seems to be so secretive and not many people know about it? Thanks for sharing this lovely information!
Thank you ted ed for sharing the knowledge
Because we feast on the blood of innocent.
Occams Chainsaw the profile pic matches that could meet perfectly 😂
Occams Chainsaw freaking weeb
And you are alive because we feast on the blood of the innocent, thank humanities discarding of natural selection too.
Occams Chainsaw Shut up pissy vegan
That face though...
We depend so much of our survival on amazing creatures like these yet we fail to protect them. Our arrogance towards other species will be our downfall.
"We truly learn from darker days."
They are very much protected there are huge no take zone called the shuster horseshoe crab reserve the crab that is harvested in the small area that is open to harvest has a 4% mortality rate the 15% estimated is from a bias source
@@johnciliberto2942 Saying all that but giving no source
@@myouniverse0613 look it up shutter horseshoe crab reserve
Schuster
You can find a large amount of dead ones at cape san blas, Fl. Alive ones too, I was lucky to see 2 mating a few years ago. The cape is an ideal nursery, lots of sting rays and even baby sharks in the evening. I was always wondering if the dead ones were returned blood donors and maybe they took a little too much making them weak.
now I love horseshoe crabs....and I love this channel
I never knew I needed this information, but now that I know it...where has it been all my life?
Jane Lennon and I've known it fir years, but I haven't done anuthing useful with it..
Jane Lennon d
"Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood?"
We harvest horseshow crab blood?
Raymond V.M That's what I was saying too 😐
@@JustAlanIsCool and 40 other people
Everyone looks so sad, this is so depressing :( .
Ikr :( their face is like "we know this is wrong, but we have to do this for our race to survive." Which begs the question, how much more do other species have to sacrifice for our sake. 😓
@@enchantking "our race" what?
@@Blake4014 "what" what?
@@enchantking far to many. Instead of evolving to be stronger and live longer, we take the easy way and take resources from other species to live longer.
Think about vacunes. We take poison from snakes and the Blood from the Horseshoe crab for ourselves. We take the fur and skin from other animals to keep ourselves warm.
We evolved to take away from other animals for our own bennefit
A deceptively simple title that summarised the sacrifices of the horseshoe crabs.
Is this similar to the reason why aliens abduct us
your kidding
To go to another planet to do it is ridiculous
Human blood is great for removing Oxygen out of our Methane craving bodies, don’t worry, we only borrow about a few hundred million of your species. Unfortunately it’s a pain to send you all back so. . . .we just drain you completely. Sorry.
Yes Surrey
I don’t think there’s anything fro. Us to extract
i love ted more than my bio teacher.
Ouch
TUNGSTEN 0340 not ouch straight fax.
Dude, my teacher doesn't know how to spell 'escherichia coli'
Ted Ed just entertains with science trivial Plus, your teacher gives you grades.
I've gone ceptic *three* times due to a combination of my chronic illness and medical errors. These guys an the donated blood I needed to help my body bounce back from the brink of death saved me and I just wanted to say thank you to medical workers and people who donate blood thank you. Without these things I'd allmost certainly be dead.
You should thanked the crabs not the humans. Without their blood, you’ll be dead already
They died for your sins
@@timohara7717I really hope this isn't genuine.
*I wanna know who was the first person in history who thinks "let's harvest horseshoe crab for making madicine"* 💀
I remember I saw a dead one and I thought it was a fossil
Congo on 5 mil subs. uploading videos daily makes us happy thanks for doing it.
As a child, living at Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod, Ma, we regularly saw small and large horseshoe crabs semi-burrowed in the sand. Usually in shallow water.
At least they looked like horseshoe crabs anyway.
I didn't know this still exists today,, thanks, TED-ed.
Gram stains don't detect bacteria. They identify cell wall types.
Really fascinating, I don't think I would've ever thought or heard about this if it weren't for this video.
Now I understand what I saw on TV 8 years ago.
I have seen a video somewhere on YT where they have shown that Horseshoe Crab blood has been synthesized in Singapore. (And they have probably allowed people to use them without licence fee for patent).
This illustrator's work is amazing!
Thank you horseshoe crab for all you've done for us even tho you may not have wanted to. Love you horse crabby ❤️
I never knew we ever harvasted their blood!
I can’t believe it!
I remember an old "The Invaders" episode, in which David Vincent witnessed the aliens use a Horseshoe Crab to torture someone...
I got to see those while in Cape Canaveral Fla...
It is cool that they are harvested rather than killed...
Whelp.
Ruler_Riley 16 Sums up this world
I didn't know we did and now I'm interested 🤔
Horseshoe crabs are amazing. I heard somewhere that they're the ancestors of the pill bug, which is kind of weird to think about.
this youtube chanel is awsome, bring a lot of neccessary knowledge
I always thought they were endangered and extremely rare to come across. Had no idea there were hundreds of thousands of them left
Why haven't they put gps trackers on them?
On babies? The adults die not too long after, we don't know where the babies go for 10 years
OverlordLucs why don't they put gps trackers on baby crabs?
Justin W do you know the size of those baby and how what is the smallest GPS that is waterpoof :P
J C
They probably don't stay one very well. First off, it being a baby and therefor probably sheds it right off with its skin. And look at its shape, it's really smooth, not much to attach it to.
They'd more than likely have to microchip them like we do our dogs.
J C it wont survive the presure of the deep see?
Ted Ed; Did you have a horseshoe crab transfusion
Me; NO NEVER EVER AT ALL
Horseshoe crabs look so cute!
I love crabs and their relatives. they are so interesting
Oddly enough, they're more closely related to spiders than to true crabs and other crustaceans.
Maybe one of the most beautiful creature on earth
No it looks like a yeast infection but it is cool
@@technicly. they give you their blood and some of them even die and it still isn't beautiful for you?? humans are way worst than i think
@@mr.sandhu587 he just said they are cool in their own way, they just don't look cool, a giant shell with two beady eyes and a tail isn't something that looks beautiful, he never said they were useless.
The beginning part sounds like the horseshoe crab version of "Alien abduction".
this tore my heart up into shreds :(
Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood?
Scientists: *hehe crab make blue*
hehe
hehe
Not funny hate humanity let go save the world said the people killing the world
hehe
Hehe
Aw poor dino crabs
They're kinda cute
Ted ed videos sometimes make me see doctors as sorcerers, drawing the blood of an ancient creature to save a man's live.
Ted: Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood?
Me: We harvest horseshoe crab blood?
99% of us do not realize we even harvest horseshoe blood
2:20 why does she look like she’s going to end it all
The scene from 2:01 is the same that of the cyclopamine in "The strange case of the cyclops sheep."
This was very good
Damn this is cool I’m glad we don’t kill em(edit damn 15% is too high)
Zach Jimenez put a waterproof camera on one
*_"Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood?"_*
I'm sorry we what now?
actually when on a manatee watch 2 people on our trip found 2 horse shoe crabs one on top of a smaller one. we were in the water when we found them too. it was neat to see one.
I always thought it had something to do with horses and their feet... I never even noticed the crab in it.
Horseshoe crabs are the MVP of 2019. Thanks Elizabeth Cox for the information. I wanna block the haters like horseshoe crabs block the pathogens with amebocytes.
Why don't we just farm them while leaving the naturally wild ones alone if all we need is their blood?
a random coment that's a good idea
We need to start
they probably dont live long or breed in captivity
they will evolve and will lose those precious blood just like dogs lose their instinct of being a wolf
apdroid geek That's unlikely
We’re finally asking the real questions
2:38
Antivax moms: im coming for you
Looks like were going to the era of metahumanity if we successfully emulate the horseshoe crabs' healing factors.
So, do the horseshoe crabs call us vampires?
Why did this make me cry?
Human ability to drive any creature to its extinction is just superb.
We've screwed everything up just for our selves.
I wonder if its possible to track the baby/young horse shoe crabs before they leave the shore to go to sea for ten years to finally find out where they go.
It's not because they take of the skin
in the late 90s, my people used to eat their eggs once in years, but now they're protected so we don't hunt them anymore.
Ted-Ed: Why do we harvest horseshoe crab's blood
Me: wait, we do?
Yeah for vaccines and stuff
Horseshoe crabs are savage
Cool sorry. Found a lone Horshoe crab in an estuary once. It was flipped over and I freaked out, so my mom flipped it over and it swam away lol.
SomeDumbGamer not cool
I was showed a horshoe crab and i freaked too bcus i was a child at that moment
I was thinking about horseshoe carbs a while ago and this video popped up lol
I read about this yesterday.
In the vampire world horseshoe crab blood is probably the Kobe beef of bloods while ours is like the poor man blood. Darn crabs stealing our fame
3:21 Man horseshoe crabs are OP, they killed off the dinosaurs!
Thats why scientists are nurfing their numbers
@@lordrefrigeratorintercoole288 No. They survive EXTENTION in the dinosaur Era. Or simply survive what dinosaurs couldn't
@@Honoured_Mahes brother..m
Thank you little guys :D
My cousin and I found a dead horseshoe crab during a beach trip, it was wicked cool to see all the legs and stuff.