(Reuters) - Environmental groups on Monday petitioned the U.S. government seeking endangered species protection for the American horseshoe crab, a "living fossil" under threat from commercial harvests for bait and biomedical use as well as from habitat loss and climate change.
These spine-tailed sea creatures named for the shape of their body shells have been crawling ashore since long before the age of dinosaurs, and in modern times were a familiar sight to summer beachgoers along the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
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