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Epstein.

One of the most ancient species on earth

They have been on earth for around 445 million years. Think of all they have endured. And we had to go and eff it up. Can’t we have anything nice?

These animals are being tortured and killed en masse. Their numbers are declining rapidly and this is having a negative impact on the ecosystem. Find another way!

a problem that will expand. a hippos eyes.

Migrating birds depend on horseshoe crabs to survive. Humans must share- and protect other living creatures.

Apparently it's not even a crab. It's an arachnida, thus it has more in common with scorpions and spiders.

I met one in the surf in Massachusetts a few years back, interesting little critters. Ancient looking.

Absolutely love these animals. Need to save the salt marsh where the breed and thrive. 450 million years young!

Fuck ‘em purists

Good article.

The "need" was never there, only greed.

The only known alternative is stupidly expensive and not easily made in enough quantity for real-world lab use needs.

Why is this article re-written every few months?

In MAGA land...probably not.

Remind us again what Dough-Head Trump is doing to the Environmental Protection Agency !!!

Just saying, I never met a crab that I liked.

I remember in 1978 in St Pete on a little island seeing 100s mating

Agreed!

💚

Until the alternative is approved by USP, biopharma has no choice, they can't release product without passing LAL.

Ask A.I. for a substitute.

Good point.

In addition, scientists have discovered that fish feel incredible pain when they are removed from water, so it's not a stretch to imagine that these creatures do also.

And the tide would flip them on their back and we would have to to rock paper sisscors on who was gonna flip them over

I live in an area where these are harvested. Was at a stoplight one day behind a pickup truck whose bed was literally HEAPED with horseshoe crabs. They say they try to be careful with them so they can be released after being bled, but I do NOT believe it. Many, many die 🥺

Don’t tell RFK2

Radiolab did an interesting episode about this a few years ago, although they didn’t talk much about the synthetic alternative. radiolab.org/podcast/baby...

I've never heard that. Is it harmful to the horseshoe crab?

Incredibly interesting! Our horseshoe crab population has been severely impacted by storms, red tides and an unprecedented heat level this summer. Gulf of Mexico coastal water temps are in the mid to upper 90s.

Interesting!!!

Crampires?

They have been around for 445 million years; the horseshoe crab you see now have been around for 250 million years. I don't think they are going anywhere soon.

The way these crabs are treated is repulsive

I stand with your actual journalists, not your billionaire owners!

The greedy bastards can use a more expensive alternative but won’t.

Blue-blooded living fossils. They evolved before most species, survived hundreds of million years, and humans are poised to exterminate them out of convenience.

Really, I think politics and medical issues SHOULD NOT MIX. Any issue!!

Irony- i just taught about Horseshoe crabs and Their blood this week!

Ask AI how to synthesize it. If it doesn't know now, it will soon

They don't have a choice until FDA approves alternative.

The last time I checked, its major problems for being used in the US are that it's stupidly expensive and difficult to make in enough of a quantity for real-world lab use in the US.

Stepped on one once. Freaked me out.

WTF? Who discovered it to begin with?

We had better. Please, nobody tell Worm Brain these things are vital.

One of these fuckers saved my life in Okinawa. It's the least I could do.

My previous comment was from memory, and my numbers were off.

Thought it was a computer mouse at first 🤣

Watching these documentaries and seeing the bleeding is something out of a science fiction movie. Amazing with all our technology that we are still doing this and seem to be ok with it.

Nah.. they want to sell their synthetic product. THEY HAVE NEVER given a DAMN about ecosystems. Hopefully they all need formaldehyde soon..now that is a product🎯😁😇

30 years ago there were many many horseshoe crabs on our beach. You rarely see them any longer. sad.

They are not crabs.

As usual we fuck everything up.

Kinda ghoulish.

My favorite band has a song about this... music.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRs...

👹Evolve From Animal Cruelty!! END ANIMAL TESTING!

So almost all pharmaceuticals are not vegan. And I thought the problem was just gelcaps.

Surprise! Trying to save individual human lives costs individual other species lives - is this they way you want the world to be? There is plenty of science to match the need, if you aren't willing to sacrifice a whole species and/or ecosystem...

I’m a tile contractor by trade. But even I could come up with a better system for securing the crab than one of those black bungee cords. These crabs are actually pretty fragile. The shell is not as hard as regular crab crabs. The horseshoe isn’t really a crab anyway.

For people who are against their use in medical testing for cruelty reasoning, I have to ask you a question. Would you really rather humans die so they can not be used? There's no inexpensive widely available alternative yet.

Good point but there’s a growing shift away from the traditional LAL test toward animal-free, sustainable alternatives—driven by ethical concerns, regulatory changes, and technological innovation. A variation of the process yes but all need maintenance validation as it’s a state not a test.

Is there any creature that humans don’t exploit? This is so painful for these poor creatures. It’s just atrocious.

There is nothing kind about the humankind.

NO.. nothing to do with ''a compound'' you Journalese prats. It's the ANTIBODIES. ffs.

There were a ton of these at Hilton Head Island beaches this May.

As long as the most wealthy are making a profit what could possibly go wrong?

Humans are what’s wrong with this planet. No animal deserves that.

That's one of my favorite fun facts and this is one of my favorite animals. I grew up around horseshoe crabs.

Listened to all 11 minutes on WaPo. Yes read/listen all.

Ty. I saw enough of Wapo to see that synthetic is available. wtf is wrong with us? I don’t love it when I run across one, but give it wide berth. Now I’ll just feel lousy seeing yet more reminders of our wanton destructive nature. Unforeseen consequences are the migratory birds. WTH?

Victims. They are victims.

we need to. They have lasted millions of years but we always find a way to ruin our planet

Just going to note that Sarah Zhang in the Atlantic got to this story 7 years ago. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

they harvest(usually around 100) and supposedly return them, their blood is blue.

I think Dave the Diver caught one of these.

These things were really common just 30 years ago. This is a species that has survived 450 million years and we're practically wiping them out. Humanity is a mass extinction event.

We need environmental protections discord.gg/thepeoples-s...

Sounds like the WP is up Trump's denialist arse again...

Of course!

We humans live longer than the deity had in probability. It is the capacity to imagine, will be the power that destroys humanity. Instinctual suppression via religion,e.g., human fear of sexuality(unconscious enantiodramia),creates population excess,through prejudice of birth control; brainwashing

When you get sick of this endless @&$ come chill in the 1800s. substack.com/@yesterdaysn...

Actually read the words on the screen.

Turn ‘em over!

Now we eat road kill and swim in sewage to toughen us up, take steroids til our voice is gone and make decisions based on conspiracy theories because education is woke and we want to think we're cool instead of informed.

We should.

bsky.app/profile/spoo... DONALD TRUMP: "GHISLAINE MAXWELL'S DAD ROBERT WAS LIKE A FATHER FIGURE TO ME"