.............The coast of Delaware has 80 miles of beaches that provide some of the best wild habitat on the East Coast of the United States. This unique area has many wild inhabitants and one of them is the American Horse Crab. For millions of years scientist estimate that these creatures have roamed the earth. And evidence shows that for thousands of years this hard shelled crabs have called delaware home.

............. An interesting phenomenon of nature happens once a year in late May and early June during high tide on the full moon. Tens of thousands of Horseshoe Crabs crawl up from thier watery homes onto the beaches to spawn. The beach is jammed with little half round shells that look like plies of old army helmets spread along the beach as far as the eye can see. This invasion is a wild orgy of hard shelled beasts that is quite a sight to see and hear. The sounds of their shells clanging together as thousands climb over each other is a eerie symphony of nature, on an other wise quite night at the beach.

...............On the high and when the full moon is out, female crabs crawl up the beach with male crabs in tow. The Males have specially designed claws shaped like small boxing cloves to grab on to the shells of the females. They hang on for the ride, like young boys hanging onto a rear bumper of a ford station wagon after a snow storm.

...............Male crabs out number the girls , so each female has their own entourage like so many pretty girls do. They crawl up the beach looking for the right spot to lay their eggs and circle around with their males hagging on. They tend to build their nest a little above the high tide line where they dig in . The female pushes her shell forward and down into the sand and digs with her claws until she has reached depth of around 8 inch. She starts lay her eggs and mixes sand and seawater to make a slurry, at the same time the attached male is releasing his sperm into this slurry of eggs and the female mixes into a sticky ball of fertilized eggs that will be buried below her.

...............At The same time the males crabs hanging around the sides of the females which are called satellite males would like to provide some of their joy into the mix, and they do. It turns out that these satellite males provide sperm into the mix also. It seems chaotic but scientist have studied this prehistoric beasts for years and have discovered that this satellite function has kept the gene pool diverse and this could be one of the reasons this species has be around for million of year.

...............The tide starts to recede and the crabs slowly retreat back into the ocean until the next high tide. For weeks if the weather is good the crabs will come up to spawn until the female has released all her eggs. Below is a Video segment of the Documentary of the American Horse Shoe Crab.

...............At the same time as the spawning of Horse Shoe Crabs the migratory Shore Birds start to arrive and take advantage of the abundance of Horse Shoe Crab egg on the beach.