• Horseshoe crabs face an uncertain future in Odisha, their largest habitat in India, even as the world gets ready to celebrate the first-ever ‘International Horseshoe Crab Day’ on June 20, 2020.
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Horseshoe Crab Specialist Group had decided to observe the day in its meeting from June 14-20, 2019 at Qinzhou City in China.

About Horseshoe crabs

• The horseshoe crab is a living fossil. It has been on Earth some 220 million years, longer than dinosaurs. 
• Horseshoe crabs are a critical link to world health, biodiversity and hold cultural importance across the globe. One of their ecological functions is to lay millions of eggs on beaches to feed shorebirds, fish and other wildlife. Unfortunately, this ecological link can be broken in areas where population density is low.
• The horseshoe crab was included on September 9, 2009 in the Schedule IV of the Wild (Life) Protection Act, 1972, under which, the catching and killing of a horseshoe crab is an offence