"They look like the face huggers from the movie ‘Alien’."
The humble horseshoe crab, an ancient species crawling seafloors since before the dawn of the dinosaurs, was durable enough to survive the mass extinctions of eons past.
But now, hundreds of millions of years since their origin, the living fossils face a dire threat that could jeopardize their lengthy existence: humans.
A lawsuit filed Monday in federal court alleges humans are pushing horseshoe crabs toward extinction through habitat loss, overexploitation and failing regulations.
The national environmental nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity says in its lawsuit that the federal government has delayed granting horseshoe crabs greater protections under the Endangered Species Act as populations have plummeted by more than 70% in recent decades.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times