When: Thursday, May 16 2019 at 6:00 p.m.

Where: Marine Discovery Center, 520 Barracuda Blvd, NSB, 32169

Cost: FREE

The lecture is open to the public at no charge and no reservations are required.

Horseshoe crabs, one of the oldest organisms on earth, will be the topic of the Marine Discovery Center’s May public lecture.

Jenna N. Palmisano, a third-year Stetson University student studying aquatic and marine biology with an environmental science minor, will present “The Wonderful World of Limulus Polyphemus, the North American Horseshoe Crab; Who Are They and Why Do We Care About Their Conservation?”

The presentation is set for Thursday, May 16, starting at 6 p.m. The lecture is hosted by the Marine Discovery Center, located at 520 Barracuda Boulevard in New Smyrna Beach.

Called “living fossils,” horseshoe crabs have been on earth for more than 400 million years and play a vital ecological, biomedical and commercial role in our ecosystem. The species has experienced significant decline since the late 1990s and are currently listed as a “vulnerable species.”

Palmisano, a native of New Hampshire, is working toward a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology. She has previously served as an assistant aquarist in an internship at the Marine Discovery Center and has worked as a docent with the center’s live animal exhibits.

Now in her second internship at MDC while studying at Stetson, Palmisano performs horseshoe crab field research and data analysis with the center’s horseshoe crab monitoring program – a part of the larger Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) horseshoe crab watch project, which tracks the reproductive behaviors of crabs on the east and west coasts of Florida.

For more information about the lecture, contact the Marine Discovery Center at 386-428-4828.

The lecture is open to the public at no charge  |  No reservations are required
Early arrival is recommended ~ seating is limited.