Beneath a full moon in Jamaica Bay, horseshoe crab love was in the air.

Female crabs skirted along the shore, each with two or three smaller male crabs attached to their backs and sides, fertilizing thousands of eggs in the sand. Hundreds of casual encounters like this were taking place during a visit by Gothamist last week to Plumb Beach in Brooklyn. A similar episode occurs every May and June during high tides around full and new moons.

“ It's a bar scene,” said Matthew Sclafani,  marine educator at the Cornell Cooperative Extension. “It's typically 3-to-1 males to females in this area. So, sperm is cheap.”

Plumb Beach, a narrow strip just off the Belt Parkway, is one of the hottest spots for thousands of horseshoe crabs to find mates. A female crab will have as many as three male cra

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