Underdone Comics

💌happy Valentine’s Day, everybody❣️
Be sure to send this to somebody you’d like to nibble on the way a plecko nibbles on algae😘

❤️

A monster hit from the Late Cretaceous.

^ ^
(о´∀`о)

🧠an old brain joke for

Oh we owe so much to the horseshoe crab. I remember seeing them doze their way up the Jersey Shore when I was a kid. They’re harmless, they look angry, and nowadays they have a right to be.

They’ve been scooting along the sand for no less than 440 MILLION YEARS (that’s a while, like pre-dinosaur, pre-permian extinction) and now they’re endangered.

BUT—they’re endangered for a good reason! Their blue, copper-based blood has some chemicals in it that forms oozy walls around bacteria. So in 1970, scientists used it to form LAL, which is a substance that detects bacterial infections around medicines in labs. Before that, people who tested drugs had to inject lab bunnies with their pharmaceuticals to see if anything was contaminated.
Now people harvest about 600,000 horseshoe crabs a year, tap their blood and return them to the sea—some of which actually survive the process!
Because of their sacrificial blood, the IUCN has put these ancient creatures on their list of vulnerable species.

❓⏰What other articles do you think are in the Coastal Times? Let me know in the comments! (I’ll go first).

Keep these comics scuttling along! Get something in the shop or become a patron—links in bio.

Just when you thought I wouldn’t post any posts. Here they are. Do you think the world’s first blockbuster did more harm or good to sharks and marine life?