Clinton Small„ age 10, of Freeport

Do horseshoe crabs lay eggs

You may find the horseshoe crab in shallow shore waters from Maine to Yucatan. You will recognize him at once, His shell is a sizeable brown dome shaped like a filled‑in horseshoe. Inside is a spider shaped fellow with eight walking legs and a pair of pincers, His thin, spiny tail pokes out behind his horseshoe shell. The shell may be two feet wide and  because of his size, the horseshoe crab is also called the king crab,

The king crabs congregate in shallow waters grubbing for worms in the sand and mud, In the fall, large numbers of the lady king crabs congregate in sandy areas. For this is egg‑laying time and they have come to dig shallow cradles in the sand. When the babies hatch, they look like small copies of their parents, except they have no tails, ‑ The king crab is something like a spider and something like a shellfish. Modern experts place him in a class by himself. They say he is not closely related to any living creature. He seems to be related to some ancient family now almost extinct.