Ten Thousand Friends - Part III

By now the sun had slipped below the line separating earth and sea and we were bathed in the pale light of a resplendent summer moon.  Flashlights clicked on and headlights flickered as we continued down the beach – carefully sidestepping the panoply of single-minded creatures as they scurried and scuttled and clasped and fertilized in a mating ritual that was both silent and frantic.  From time to time we would encounter a horseshoe crab unceremoniously somersaulted on its back by an unexpected wave.  One of us would gently reach down and flip the hapless creature right side up - whereupon it would continue its journey up the sand or back into the waiting arms of the bay.

Each of us moved silently over the sand – occasionally crouching down to watch the circus of arthropods before us or sharing a comment or two with another member of the troop.  Like the constant budding of amoebas, we would divide into small groups of threes and fours and fives, reassemble, and then divide again – carefully observing the “action” on the beach, sharing an observation, or gathering a shell or two for display on the living room coffee table.  Conversation was muted as we listened to the scraping and clatter of shells rubbing against each other in the stilled air.

Around us were hundreds of female crabs, each of whom would scoop out a small hollow in the beach and wait - with their usual evolutionary patience - for the arrival of a male (or two or three or four) to consummate their bond.  While we were temporary, these crabs were part of a permanence of nature, a constant coming and going that transcended all vestiges of time.  We realized that this was nature at its most spectacular – the reproduction of a species. 

For millennia after millennia these crabs and their ancestors have been locked in an eternal embrace – passing their genes and their ancestry from one generation to the next.  Each of us knew we were short-term witnesses to a perpetual spectacle that has been taking place since, well, since almost forever – a spectacle full of awe and mystery and the passion of persistence.

It is, most hopefully, a never-ending story. 

Ten Thousand Friends - Part II

As we strolled up the beach we watched transfixed as couples mated on every stretch of sandy real estate they could find.  Almost alien in appearance, these sub-marine “tanks” plowed their way out of the water, up the beach, and into each other with all the delicacy of a frenzied herd of bull elephants drunk on fermented fruits.  There were the usual twosomes and threesomes, and occasionally we would come across a foursome, a fivesome, and even one over-stimulated sixsome – a coupling which, I am sure, would have put most adult film stars to shame.  Cameras clicked and notes were scribbled as we traipsed through rippling waves to watch these critters perform – each of them totally oblivious to our presence and each totally absorbed in a ritual propelled by tides and temperatures and hormones…forces as old as time itself.

Occasionally Glenn would pause and proffer some instruction on the biology, anatomy, or physiology of these ancient critters.  At one juncture he gathered up a lonely male – turning it over to reveal selected features of its anatomy.  He pointed to the underside and identified each of the six paired appendages.  He told us how the horseshoe uses the first pair (the chelicerae) for placing food (they particularly favor marine worms and small clams) in its mouth.  The next pair of appendages are the pedipalps which are the first ambulatory legs.  In the adult male, the tarsus (final segment) of these legs are modified as a grasping appendage, allowing males to clasp the female during spawning – a unique coupling that will require considerably more attention later in this book. The “last” legs are the “pusher legs” which are used for both terrestrial and underwater locomotion.

Glenn swept his hand toward the tail and the five branchial "legs" – often referred to as book gills.  He told us how the horseshoe uses these both for propulsion (when swimming) as well as for "breathing."  Similar to the gills in a fish, they are a membrane that allows oxygen to pass through while keeping the water out.  We posed a few questions (“What’s the shell made of?”, “How long do they live?”, and “What is THAT thing?”) and our brief biology lesson was over.  Ever so gently, Glenn placed the uncomplaining “specimen” back on the beach right side up.  The over-hormoned crab lost no time in scuttling off to seek a ready female – completely oblivious to the gaggle of humans observing his departure.

Next Post - Part III

Ten Thousand Friends - Part I

As a college student I never attended an orgy.  Oh, sure, I had heard about certain “celebrations” that had taken place over Spring Break down in Mexico or occasional initiation parties along “fraternity row,” but I was certain they were more hyperbole than fact.  Even in my current role as a college professor I sometimes overhear inflated stories about bacchanalian weekends or wild end-of-the-academic-year festivals in distant corners of the campus.  But, I have never been an observer of (nor certainly a participant in) a full-blown Roman-style orgy where indiscriminate, and quite frequent, sexual encounters take place long into the night…and even into the following day.

            At least, not until I went to Delaware.

            Although it was late May, there was a crispness in the air as a small group of us stood in informal huddles along a sandy parking area bordering Broadkill Beach.  Directly to the west we watched a brilliant mass of solar hydrogen slowly creep down toward the horizon – spreading crimsons, saffrons, tangerines and fuchsias across the rippled waters of Delaware Bay.

Broadkill Beach is a long sweep of sand positioned two-thirds of the way down the eastern edge of Delaware and across from Cape May, New Jersey.  Broadkill is part of the Prime Hook State Wildlife Management Area – an expansive preserve lying about ten miles northwest of the tourist hotels, T-shirt shops, and ubiquitous saltwater taffy stores that flank the boardwalk of the resort town of Rehoboth Beach.  Houses here are few (condos are fewer) and people are a rarity along this seemingly deserted and forgotten stretch of itinerant sand dunes – each sprinkled with clumps of blue-green sea grass and the tracings of offshore winds.

We were an eclectic troop of teachers, businesspeople, housewives, artists, novelists, plumbers, lawyers, ecologists, accountants, children’s authors, and social workers.  Led by Glenn Gauvry of the Ecological Research & Development Group (ERDG), a wildlife preservation organization whose primary focus is the conservation of horseshoe crabs, we had each signed up to witness one of nature’s most spectacular rites of spring – an orgy of arthropods.  The annual mating call had sounded and tens of thousands of ancient creatures had heeded its siren echoes – scraping their way up out of the depths to frolic in front of several wide-eyed voyeurs who were recording their every move and every action.

            I guess if you want to have group sex, an isolated beach in Delaware is as good a place as any.

Next Post - Part II