Florida Fish and Wildlife need your help with horseshoe crabs

Your help is wanted by Florida Fish and Wildlife. This is the peak period when horseshoe crabs come ashore to mate.

[Marcia Neil]

Unless I'm mistaken, the brown armorlike, peaked carapaces shed along shorelines change color in the sun -- resembling the reddish-white coloration patterns of certain fish. [in Stuart, FL]

[Marcia Neil]

Yes!-- a genuine horseshoe crab exoskeleton, three inches long total size, west spoil island beneath the Lyons Bridge, Indian River Lagoon in Martin County, FL. Specimen may be a plant or discard, as other true crab remains have been in that area, within mangrove cluster proximity.

[Marcia Neil]

A few days ago, horseshoe crab exoskeleton lacking everything but horned shed carapace, about four inches wide x four inches long -- resembling a mask and is possibly a plant -- observed on west spoil island beneath Lyons Bridge near Sewall's Point, FL. Half stone crab with claw rolling in shoreline water nearby, also a possible plant from catch elsewhere or supermarket.

[Marcia Neil]

(continued from #3) This past Friday on east island beneath Lyons Bridge near Hutchinson Island: what appears to be the same horeshoe-crab mask-like casting observed on shoreline northside following days of prevailing westward winds (previous sighting also northside on west island shoreline). The total absence of all other body-part castings does suggest a plant, because the casting is not damaged.

[Marcia Neil]

This date an almost-complete horseshoe-crab exoskeleton can be observed among shells and rubble on the northside shore of the west island beneath the Lyons Bridge, lacking only pointed tail. A mini-lobster exoskeleton also lies not far away, as do the remains of a +/- three-foot-long fish missing its midsection.