Endangered
Tachypleus tridentatus
Tachypleus tridentatus
Tachypleus tridentatus is an animal in the family Limulidae (order Xiphosurida), recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
There are significant geographic variations in the size, but this does not follow a clear north–south or east–west pattern.
The largest females of the tri-spine horseshoe crab can be as much as 79.5 cm (31.3 in) long, among them their tail.
Range and habitat
Tachypleus tridentatus, called the Chinese horseshoe crab, Japanese horseshoe crab, or tri-spine horseshoe crab, is a horseshoe crab found in Southeast and East Asia, with records from China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. It is found in coastal marine and brackish waters, and tolerates colder temperatures than the other Asian horseshoe crabs (Tachypleus gigas and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda), although juveniles still need water warmer than 22 °C (72 °F) to moult.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
On hatching, the larvae remain in the nest over winter, feeding on the yolks of their eggs for several months, remaining in this nursery area during the next spring and summer. As juveniles they remain buried in the sediment during high tide, emerging at low tide to feed on the exposed surface.
In crisis
Tachypleus tridentatus is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Tachypleus tridentatus, Wikidata item Q1328469. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
