Prehistoric crabs help test vaccine safety

Horseshoe crabs live in the sea. They're very old. They were on the Earth before the dinosaurs. They started life 450 million years ago. But they aren't really crabs. They're like spiders.

Nivette Pérez-Pérez: "Horseshoe crabs, in, in difference of their common name, they're not crabs. They're actually arthropods that are related to spiders and scorpions. This is a female, and one of the ways to see that is this first pair of legs. They're actually pinchers."

Scientists use blood from horseshoe crabs. It can find bacteria in medicines and equipment. The horseshoe crab's blood is very important. They always test vaccines with it. They need lots for new Covid vaccines.

Glenn Gauvry wants to save horseshoe crabs.

Glenn Gauvry: "One of the things that has always been tested with this test is vaccines. So we've got vaccines around the world for all kinds of things, but we now have a whole new wave of vaccines being produced and developed for the battle against Covid. And they're being tested on, on the same test made from the horseshoe crab blood."

Every year, scientists use blood from 500,000 horseshoe crabs. 15 percent of these horseshoe crabs die. Scientists don't want any horseshoe crabs to die. They're looking for another way to test for bad bacteria. Now, a Swiss company's making another test. But it isn't ready yet.

People are counting horseshoe crabs on US beaches. Their future is unclear. But people are helping them, like Laurel Sullivan.

Laurel Sullivan: "We have the largest spawning population in the world in the Delaware Bay. So it's something that people in this area take very seriously and they're really passionate about, because it's something that's really unique to this area."

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