Our family digs horseshoe crabs. We’ve had the exoskeleton of one sitting on the kids’ shelf for a couple of years now that we might have found on a beach. (Note: we do know that if every yahoo that goes to the beach takes something home there won’t be anything left for others to enjoy – but this was in the name of education, or science… science education actually.)
We take every opportunity to manhandle the prehistoric beauties in touch-tanks across the Eastern seaboard. Since reading Crab Moon, by Ruth Horowitz we’ve had this dream of seeing huge quantities of them on the beach in the moonlight.
This spring we went to a Ranger-lead program on Fire Island. It was a Saturday, and a full moon, and while they won’t promise you anything, there was a chance that we would see horseshoe crabs, as they mate on the beach during May and June on nights when it’s a full moon.
After gathering in the visitor’s center to see how horseshoe crabs are tagged and identified, and spending some time on crafts (e.g. origami horseshoe crabs) it was finally time. The gaggle of geeks amassed there that evening walked with purpose toward the beach, only communicating in anticipation-drenched whispers.
With the beam of our flashlights muted by red plastic, we saw (wait for it) – two. And much to my children’s chagrin they weren’t even mating. Just two males trolling the beach of Fire Island – like that’s anything to write home about.
“Well,” somebody said in the dark behind me as we reluctantly left the chaste beach, “I supposed our chances are limited when all the elements have to come together on a Saturday night…” Curse the limitations of “school nights!” I thought – shaking my fist at the heavens.
Recently my kids, still wounded by our thwarted attempt at seeing a large group of horseshoe crabs, used oil pastels and paper plates to decorate our closet door. I asked them what they thought a group of horseshoe crabs would be called. For inspiration we looked up animal group names online. Some of our favorites:
flutter of butterflies; wake of buzzards; nuisance of cats; destruction of wild cats; chattering of chicks; quiver of cobras; intrusion of cockroaches; gulp of cormorants; kine of cows; murder of crows; swarm of eels; mob of emus; charm of finches; charm of hummingbirds; draft of fish; stand of flamingoes; business of flies; tower of giraffes; tribe of goats; glint of goldfish; cloud of grasshoppers; confusion of guinea fowl; array of hedgehogs; bloat of hippopotamuses; cackle of hyenas; party of jays; smack of jellies; deceit of lapwings; flock of lice; mischief of mice; scourge of mosquitoes; parliament of owls; pandemonium of parrots; prickle of porcupines; rumba of rattlesnakes; storytelling of ravens; crash of rhinoceroses; shiver of sharks; cluster of spiders; streak of tigers; knot of toads; wisdom of wombats; descent of woodpeckers; zeal of zebras.
And so our collective noun for horseshoe crabs? We came up with a gallop of horseshoe crabs and a clomp-clomp of horseshoe crabs. The conversation quickly dissolved into silliness reaching it’s obnoxious climax with The Girl’s suggestion of a bellybuttonbooboo of horseshoe crabs, which I wouldn’t normally even bother to type out, but she started laughing so hard she choked on her taco salad, so she earned it.
There is a picture book introducing some animal collective nouns called: Have You Ever Seen a Smack of Jellyfish? by Sarah Asper-Smith. The graphics are brilliant, gorgeous, perfect-in-every-way, but...
