Baby Blue Blood Drive

5 snips

Jul 8, 2022

Dive into the fascinating world of horseshoe crabs! Discover how their extraordinary blue blood has been a medical marvel, essential for vaccine development, especially during COVID-19. Experience their wild mating rituals and the ecological balance they maintain with migrating birds. Learn about the ethical dilemmas surrounding their blood harvesting and the shift towards synthetic alternatives. This riveting exploration highlights our deep reliance on nature and urges us to reflect on conservation efforts.

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ANECDOTE

Latif's First Assignment

Latif Nasser, a reporter, visited a Delaware beach covered in horseshoe crabs.
It was his first assignment, focused on observing their unique mating behaviors.

INSIGHT

Blue Blood and Bacterial Defense

Horseshoe crabs have blue blood due to copper instead of iron.
Their blood contains a special clotting agent that immobilizes bacteria.

ANECDOTE

Horseshoe Crab Mating Rituals

Latif observed horseshoe crabs' mating rituals guided by Glenn Govery.
The scene, while described romantically by Glenn, was chaotic and sometimes involved dead crabs.

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This is an episode that first aired in 2018 and then again in the thick of the pandemic in 2020. Why? Because though Horseshoe crabs are not much to look at, beneath their unassuming catcher’s-mitt shell, they harbor a half-billion-year-old secret: a superpower that helped them outlive the dinosaurs, survive all the Earth’s mass extinctions, and was essential in the development of the COVID vaccines. And what is that secret superpower? Their blood. Their baby blue blood. And it’s so miraculous that for decades, it hasn’t just been saving their butts, it’s been saving ours too.

But that all might be about to change.

Follow us as we follow these ancient critters - from a raunchy beach orgy to a marine blood drive to the most secluded waterslide - and learn a thing or two from them about how much we depend on nature and how much it depends on us.

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Citations:

Alexis Madrigal, "The Blood Harvest" in The Atlantic, and Sarah Zhang's recent follow up in The Atlantic, "The Last Days of the Blue Blood Harvest"

Deborah Cramer, The Narrow Edge

Deborah Cramer, "Inside the Biomedical Revolution to Save Horseshoe Crabs" in Audubon Magazine

Richard Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms

Ian Frazier, "Blue Bloods" in The New Yorker

Lulu Miller's short story, "Me and Jane" in Catapult Magazine

Jerry Gault, "The Most Noble Fishing There Is" in Charles River's Eureka Magazine

or check out Glenn Gauvry's horseshoe crab research database