Horseshoe crabs were misnamed centuries ago, when mariners thought the odd creatures' sloped shells resembled horse's feet.
Related to Long-Extinct Trilobites
But horseshoe crabs aren't actually crabs. They're chelicerates, the zoological classification that includes spiders, scorpions and mites. In fact, the 500 million-year-old animal is more closely related to long-extinct trilobites than to any living creature.
Horseshoe crabs can walk along the sea bottom on six pairs of legs, or swim upside down or right side up depending on where they're trying to go.
Schaller is here because Shipyard Point boasts the world's most northerly breeding population of the creatures. The Taunton Bay group is tiny compared to the hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs massing on the beaches of Cape Cod and Delaware Bay this month, but that's what makes it an ideal research site. The small population creates the possibility that every individual animal can be tagged and studied.
Horseshoe crabs are rare in Maine because the Atlantic is so cold and the rocky coastline provides few of the shallow, sandy estuaries in which they prefer to spawn, Schaller said.
Last summer, she visited 15 such pockets of horseshoe crab habitat scattered throughout the central and south coast of Maine. With the help of more than 70 volunteers, she began to count individuals and was surprised at the size and health of Maine's population. At the Damariscotta Mills site, 275 crabs were spotted on a single day.
"As you walk along, you don't necessarily see lots of animals, but there are more than we thought," she said.
Crabs Tagged With Plastic Markers
Taunton Bay is the only site where survey animals are being tagged, by drilling a small hole in the shell's outer edge and attaching a plastic marker. More than 1,300 crabs were so identified last summer.
Schaller believes the population could be much larger. Only a quarter of the animals counted this summer sported the bright yellow research tags.
"We're not getting a lot of returns, and we don't know where they're going," she said.
This year's survey was reduced from 15 to seven key sites, because funding from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Program was not renewed. Funded or not, Schaller hopes to continue the survey indefinitely, and answer some of the big questions about horseshoe crabs that have confounded researchers for decades.
Schaller, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist, has already proved that horseshoe crabs possess the rare ability to regenerate lost body parts in a manner similar to starfish.
In Massachusetts, Delaware and even southern Maine, horseshoe crabs are in high demand as bait in eel pot fisheriesa U.S. $70 million business according to the Atlantic Marine Fisheries Commission.
The crabs are also harvested for their blood, a valuable commodity for medical researchers. A substance extracted from horseshoe crab blood is used in hospitals to detect the presence of bacteria in biomedical equipment.
Commercial harvesters have generally overlooked eastern Maine's small, scattered populations.
Fishing regulations are virtually unheard of, and federal research suggests that larger horseshoe crab populations may be in decline. However, the knowledge of a horseshoe crab's life history, which would be essential for drafting good regulations, just doesn't exist.
With her living laboratory in Taunton Bay, and the ongoing efforts of local volunteers, Schaller hopes to provide that key information.
"It's a backwater kind of place that people don't value, but for wildlife and for fisheries, it's one of the treasures of the coast of Maine," said Steve Perrin, a Bar Harbor naturalist and president of the Friends of Taunton Bay conservation group. "It's kind of an honor to have such an ancient being come here and choose this bay."
Copyright 2002 Bangor Daily News