This Animal's Blood Is Worth $15,000 a Quart — And It Saves Your Life

[00:00:00]This animal's blood is worth $15,000 a quart and it's probably already saved your life. Meet the horseshoe crab. It's been crawling across ocean floors for 450 million years. Dinosaurs came and went. This thing didn't care. And its blood isn't red. It's bright blue. Our blood uses iron. Theirs uses copper.

[00:00:22]That copper turns the blood electric blue the moment it hits oxygen. Here's why that matters. Their blood instantly clots around bacterial toxins, making it a perfect alarm.

[00:00:32]Every vaccine, every IV bag, every surgical implant is tested with it. FDA requires it. About 600,000 crabs are harvested every year. Technicians drain up to 30% of their blood, then release them back. Some don't make it. The creature from before the dinosaurs is still out here keeping us alive.

[00:00:52]Nature's been running quality control on medicine for decades. Follow for more wild science.