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=__**The Horseshoe Crab**__=
 * T**he Horseshoe Crab is a very strange looking sea animal that lives in the Indo-Pacific Waters in Asia and along the Atlantic Coast to Maine to the Gulf of Mexico in North America. They are a living thing because it responds, grows and develops its made of many cells and it reproduces. Here are more details...



__What it Eats__
Horseshoe crabs are mainly predetors. they eats small clams, crustateans and worms. they sometimes eat algae. they have no mandibles so they crush food with their legs. Like birds they have gizzards for grinding food before it reaches the stomach.

__Shelter__
Horseshoe crabs shelter by burrowing under the sand. when the water gets too cold they burrow under the sand until the water gets warm again.

__Reproducing__
Horseshoe Crabs migrate to the shore during breeding season. The male clins onto the female's back and the female dig a hole to lay its eggs in while the male fertalizes them. The female can lay up to 60,000 to 120,000 eggs. The eggs take about two weeks to hatch.

__Blood__
Horseshoe crab blood is blue because it of the copper in it. Horseshoe Crab blood is used to make this thing called [|//Limulus// amebocyte lysate] witch is used to detect a type of bactieria!

__Other__
Horseshoe crabs breathe water with gills but their gills are special because they can also breathe air for one week. Horseshoe Crabs look like crustateans but they are not they are closely related to arachnids. Horseshoe crabs use their tals to right themselves when they get flipped by the shore.

__Video :D__
media type="youtube" key="94qDBoJ8RAs" width="376" height="318" =__**TASK 2**__= In task two I will show you the Scientific classification of the Horseshoe crab and why it is in that class.

__Scientific classification__

 * Kingdom: || [|Animalia] ||
 * Phylum: || [|Arthropoda] ||
 * Subphylum: || [|Chelicerata] ||
 * Class: || [|Merostomata] ||
 * Order: || [|Xiphosura] ||
 * Family: || **Limulidae** ||

__Anamalia__
The Horseshoe crab is an the Anamalia kingdom because has many cells. It digests food with a gizzard so it digests food with an internal chamber.



__Arthropoda__
The Horseshoe crab is an Arthropod becuase it has a segmented body, an exoskeleton and it is an invertibrae. Also because it has jointed appendages.

__Chelicerata__
Chelicerata is kind of like the Arthropod but they seperated into three groups: the Arachnid, Merostomata, and pycnogonida. Horseshoe crabs are in the Merostomata class and are in Chelicerata because they are like arthropods.



Merostomata is a name givin to an extinct group of Sea Scorpians and Horseshoe crabs because they are closely related.

__Xiphosura__
Xiphosura is an order of many extinct Chelicerata and the Horseshoe crab.

__Limulidae__
Limulidae is the fancy scientific word for Horseshoe crab.

Most information from: [|//Horseshoe Crab// FAQ],

[|//Horseshoe crab// - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Images from Google images

Video from You-Tube