Rufus Discovers First Spawning Horseshoe Crabs
The Turtle Journal team patrols SouthCoast beaches each morning throughout the Spring season. This morning, as Sue Wieber Nourse and Rufus the Turtle Dog walked a Buzzards Bay barrier beach, they spotted pairs of spawning horseshoe crabs scatter along the shoreline in the morning high tide.Â
Spawning Horseshoe Crab Pair (Female in Front)
This morning’s ~ 7:30 am high tide brought the first evidence of spawning horseshoe crabs this season. The pair above well illustrates a spawning pair. The larger female is in front with the smaller male grasping onto her shell, so that he can be Johnnie-on-the-spot when she deposits her eggs along the tide line.
Spawning Horseshoe Crabs on SouthCoast Barrier Beach
Sue has been observing these SouthCoast barrier beaches for many years now as principal of Turtle Journal and formerly as director of Tabor Academy’s Marine Science Center and as inaugural holder of the Jaeger Chair for Marine Studies. She reports that today’s spawning burst, while only containing a handful of crabs, still represents the largest number of specimens she has yet seen in this location. Horseshoe crabs had nearly been extirpated on the SouthCoast by harvesters who chop them up for cheap whelk bait.