The Timeliness of Horseshoe Crabs - All the Best Earth day

Fotos from beneath the Broad Channel Bridge June 2025

Now awaiting on Clinton Hill for the Summer homecoming of the Horeseshoe Crabs.

Rene Descartes author of The Age of Reason had argued that animals had no intelligence, because they had no sense of time. The rationalist lablled them 'automata'. or mndless creatures. To argue that accusation horseshoes crabs return to the same beach to lay eggs year after year according to the cosmic time of the moon and have for over 400 million years well before Man needed a clock to know the time.

The Coming of Horseshoe Crabs

I have long been fascinated by horseshoe crabs since my childhood on the New England shores. These prehistoric creatures have existed forever following the rythymn of the moon to benefit from the high tide dragging them out of the water onto the sand to hatch their eggs and fornicate with groups of males who fertilize the eggs in the shallows. At the end of the new moon the high tide sweeps the newborns into the sea. The horseshoe crab is not the only animal to be found in swarms on the beach at this time of year. Their eggs are a critical food source for migrating shorebirds like the Red Knot flying from the Arctic to South America. 17000 miles. Pitstopping in Jamaica Bay as they have since the end of the last Ice Age.

Last week I spotted their empty shells on the Montauk beaches. They don't swim well in the waves and prefer estuarine coves. The same place year after year. NAvy Beach in Montauk.

This coming week the hordes will arrive from the depths of the ocean on the new moon. I have contacted the NYC parks department and they were nice enough to tell about the most popular mating sites. Plum Beach off the Belt Parkway is the best.

The city's Park department has predicted June 9 for their arrival.

I shall be there to greet them.

Their eggs are a critical food source for migrating shorebirds like the Red Knot flying from the Arctic to South America. 17000 miles. Pitstopping in Jamaica Bay as they have since the end of the last Ice Age.

After the full moon fornication event they disappear into the depths of the oceans. Where? Not a mystery.__

A secret__

To homo sapiens, but not Neanderthals their partners through eternity___

This now is just another season of breeding__

ps Rene Decartes deemed animal unintelligent, since they couldn't tell time. Obviously he knew nothing of the horseshoe crabs who migrate to breed on the same beaches at the same time every year. Feh, rationalism versus the punctuality of horseshoe crabs.