Carmela Cuomo thought she had the secret within reach, hidden in a shallow black tank at the NOAA marine fisheries laboratory in Milford, Conn. The horseshoe crabs she had plucked from New Haven Harbor in 2000 trundled about their springtime ritual, digging pits in the sand, laying their eggs and fertilizing them. She was trying to understand what formula of light, food and chemistry induced these 500-million-year-old creatures to breed. But the next year, before she could figure it out, the crabs stopped mating, and the secret eluded her.Cuomo, an environmental scientist at the University of New Haven, continued to search for the answer for 10 years, in the tanks at Milford, at labs at her university, and in a set of aquariums in her own basement. Now, finally, she has begun to unlock the mystery.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Crab Love Nest: Scientific American
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