The mysteriousness of the desert...
 

Imagine your friend invited you to go catch some shrimp, and you agree to go along for the ride.

So, you get in his jeep, expecting to head towards the ocean to find the shrimp...

But he heads away from the ocean and lakes... Towards the desert!

You'd think he was nuts, right?

But not in Australia...

In Australia, there's an animal called the "shield shrimp"... it lives in the desert.

But it doesn't live long.

When the rains come, the eggs hatch, and the young shield shrimp hatch, mature quickly, and mate! They have to produce more eggs before the pools dry up again...

When the pools dry up, the creatures die. However, their eggs can last for up to 7 years!

The eggs are very light, and can be blown by the wind. That's why there are even shield shrimp on top of Uluru (Ayer's Rock)!

Just a fun factoid I wanted to share with you... :)



Unusual 'shield shrimps' flood the Australian Outback following heavy rain - after seven years hiding beneath the sand
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...eavy-rain.html

Alien-looking shrimp of the desert appear in Central Australia after flooding rains
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-1...-rains/8176744

Key to Australian Freshwater and Terrestrial Invertebrates
http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3...otostraca.html

Best wishes,

Dien

Re: The mysteriousness of the desert...
 

Dien,

Not stealing your thunder but California has the same critter. I don't know if it is the same shrimp species but you can find it when the rain comes to the Southern California desert. Maybe Southern California and Australia were once connected and global warming dissected them and sent them floating in different directions :D :D :D Just a question...

A real "living fossil"...
 

Hi,

Thanks Tom, I looked it up, and you're right! California (and other places) have a related animal, also called a "shield shrimp"...

Other strange facts...

They breathe through their legs!

They also have a third eye!

It hasn't changed its look for 250 million years (according to the fossil record), so it's called a "living fossil"...

What a weird (yet wonderful) creature... :)

Here's a close-up picture showing its third eye...



Tadpole Shrimp
http://www.realmonstrosities.com/201...le-shrimp.html

People sell the eggs as pets, kind of like "sea monkeys." You hatch them yourself...

http://www.triops.com
http://www.aquadragons.net

Thanks for the further "heads up," Tom!

Best wishes,

Dien