We know that most animals on the earth contain red blood, but there are also blue blood creatures, such as lobsters and horseshoe crabs. Lobster has become a precious seafood because of its delicious taste, while horseshoe crab has become an endangered species because of its precious blood.
What is going on?
Horseshoe crab, with the same sound as "monkey", this is a primitive and ancient creature that has lived on the earth for more than 400 million years, 200 million years before the appearance of dinosaurs. Horseshoe crab has escaped the history of the earth. The four mass extinctions on Earth have even escaped the impact of meteorites on the earth. It can be seen how tenacious its vitality is. Among the arthropods, the horseshoe crab can be regarded as a giant and can grow up to 60 cm in length.
For hundreds of millions of years, the horseshoe crab family has been prosperous. This is because the horseshoe crab has a strong reproductive ability, and the meat contains toxins, which can cause toxic shock. Therefore, both marine animals and humans have avoided the horseshoe crab. Far away. It was its peculiar blue blood that really brought the calamity to the horseshoe crab.
In modern human medicine, the blood of horseshoe crab is a very good bacterial detection agent, which is also known as the "limulus reagent". The "limulus reagent" produced from limulus blue blood is a very efficient bacteria detection agent. I don't know how many lives have been saved. As human demand for limulus blood increases, the price of limulus blue blood has also risen. Now the value of every liter of horseshoe crab blood is more than 100,000 yuan, which is higher than the value of gold.
Every year, humans will catch about 400,000 horseshoe crabs from the sea. Of course, these horseshoe crabs will not be killed. Generally, 30% of their blood will be drawn and then released. However, at most 20% of the horseshoe crabs whose blood has been taken by humans will die. Even if they survive, their reproductive capacity will be greatly reduced.
According to biologists' estimates, the population size of horseshoe crabs may drop by 50% in the next 20 years. In addition to medical needs, human pollution of the ocean, such as red tides, can also cause a large number of deaths of horseshoe crabs living on the coast.
As early as 2012, horseshoe crab was included in the red list of endangered species.So far, humans have not found a better bacteria detection agent than "limulus reagent". What do you think?
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