How many eggs can a female horseshoe crab lay?

How many eggs can a female horseshoe crab lay?

• A. 1,000 to 10,000
• B. 15,000 to 100,000
• C. 100,000 to 200,000
• D. 500 to 1,000

Answer: (B)

Horseshoe crabs invest in a very large clutch of eggs because most eggs and early larvae face heavy predation and environmental hazards. To maximize the chance that some offspring survive, a female lays tens of thousands of eggs in a single nesting on sandy beaches, with the total often reaching into the tens of thousands and sometimes approaching around a hundred thousand.

That broad range fits what researchers observe across populations: many clutches fall somewhere between about 15,000 and 100,000 eggs. The smaller ranges are too low to represent typical clutch sizes, while the higher range is possible but less common. So the best match is a count that covers tens of thousands up to around a hundred thousand eggs.