Diet
Mangrove horseshoe crabs are selective benthic feeders, feeding mainly on insect larvae, small fish, oligochaetes, small crabs and thin-shelled bivalves. Lacking jaws, it grinds up the food with bristles on its legs and places it in its mouth using its chelicerae. The ingested food then enters the cuticle-lined oesophagus and then the proventriculus. The proventriculus is made up of a 'crop' and a 'gizzard'. The crop can expand to fit the ingested food, while the gizzard grinds the food into a 'pulp'. Studies have found that mangrove horseshoe crabs have a strong preference for insect larvae over the other organisms on which it also feeds.
Read more about this topic: Mangrove Horseshoe Crab
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