#sea monkeys

[oldschoolfrp]

Selected treasures from Johnson Smith Company's 1976 catalog of 1600 novelties (from the back pages of The Savage Sword of Conan #13, Marvel Comics, July 1976)

[samimarkart]

ten days left to preorder the sea monkey, trilobite and tiktaalik acrylic charms! all come with free stickers as a thank you for preordering

[lyricthecat-12]

Aside of Bumbleby and WhiteRose, what is your favorite Queer ship?

FairGame (Qrow X Clover)

Nuts And Dolts (Ruby X Penny)

Freezerburn (Weiss X Yang)

Ladybug (Blake X Ruby)

Monochrome (Weiss X Blake)

IronQrow (James X Qrow)

Crosshares (Coco X Velvet)

Rosebird (Raven X Summer)

Sea Monkeys (Sun X Neptune)

Cloqwork (Ozpin X Qrow)

Snowfall (Cinder X Winter)

Schneekos (Pyrrha X Weiss)

Voting ended onJun 23

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: fairy shrimp

It's week 2 of fresh-uary, the month where I only cover freshwater species for Wet Beast Wednesday. This week's entry is on fairy shrimp, who are neither fairies nor shrimp. Instead, they are members of a mostly freshwater group of crustaceans called Branchipods. These little invertebrates are masters at surviving inhospitable conditions and one group has become famous in both the novelty pet and fish food worlds. You may know them as brine shrimp.

(Image: a female fairy shrimp. It is a small invertebrate somewhat shrimp-like in appearance. It has a large head with a compound eye and two pairs of antennae. The body is long and slender and the front half ans multiple limbs with feathery structures attached to them. The second half ends in a forked tail. This one has a short, transparent egg sac attached to its body just behind the limbs. Small, spherical eggs are visible within. End ID)

Fairy shrimp are members of the family Anostraca, with about 300 known species, many of which are found in very isolated areas. Most species are tiny, maxing out at 6 to 25 mm long, but some species get larger. The largest species, Branchinecta gigas, can reach 170 mm (6.7 in). Being crustaceans, they have exoskeletons, but fairy shrimp exoskeletons are very thin and fragile. The fairy shrimp body plan is divided into three regions, the head, thorax, and abdomen. The head has two compound eyes on stalks, the mouth, and two pairs of antennae. The first pair is long, thin, and unsegmented while the second pair differs depending on sex. Females have a second pair similar to the first pair, while the males have a second pair modified into grasping appendages used to hold onto the female during mating. The thorax is divided into multiple (usually 13 but sometimes more) segments. All but the final two segments are identical and each have a pair of feather-like appendages called phyllopods that act both as swimming limbs and gills. The final two segments of the thorax are fused and have a pair of appendages used for mating. The abdomen consists of 6 segments that don't have appendages. The final segment is the telson, which has a pair of paddle-like structures used for rapid movement and the anus.

(Image: a male fairy shrimp, identifiable as such by the enlarged and leg-like second pair of antennae. End ID)

Fairy shrimp are graceful, but somewhat slow, swimmers who orient themselves belly-up and swim by moving their phyllopods in sequence. They primarily feed on algae, either by filter feeding or scraping it off of rocks and other submerged structures. Some of the larger species are predators of zooplankton and Branchinecta gigas is a hunter of smaller fairy shrimp. Fairy shrimp are found in inland water on all 7 continents. They specialize in seasonal pools and salt lakes. These harsh conditions make fairy shrimp experts as surviving where many other animals cannot. They have a high tolerance for salinity, heat, and low levels of oxygen, all of which help them survive in salt lakes and evaporating pools. A characteristic all fairy shrimp share is the ability for their eggs to enter a state called diapause. This is a form of cryptobiosis where the egg becomes a cyst that stops growth and metabolic activity. Their development effectively pauses until the proper conditions occur and biological activity resumes. Cysts can survive complete dessication, freezing, hypersaline conditions, UV radiation, and the vacuum of space and can remain in this condition for centuries. Diapause also helps the fairy shrimp spread, as their cysts can be carried to new habitat by the weather or other animals.

(Image: a giant fairy shrimp Branchinecta gigas held in somebody's hand to show off its size. It is longer than the person's finger and almost as thing in the thorax. End ID)

Fairy shrimp that live in seasonal pools live fast and die young. Their lifespans last a few months at most because they need to develop to maturity and reproduce before the pool dries up for the year. Most species of fairy shrimp have distinct sexes, but some species are exclusively female and reproduce through parthenogenesis. Males use their modified antennae to grab onto females and transfer sperm to her. The female will either carry her eggs on a sac attached to her abdomen or will maintain them internally. Eggs may be released to settle on the sediment or retained internally until the mother dies and sinks to the bottom. Some species will produce two types of eggs. Early season eggs are produced when water is still abundant in the pool. They will quickly hatch and mature to adulthood. Late season eggs are produced when the pool is drying up. They will settle to the sediment and become cysts, waiting for the next wet season to refill the pool before they hatch. Not all cysts will hatch each wet season, some will wait it out for later years. This ensures that a too-short wet season can't wipe out the whole population. Fairy shrimp living in salt lakes generally don't have to worry about their home drying out, but they maintain the ability to encyst their eggs in case the water gets too salty due to evaporation or too cold or hot. Fairy shrimp in salt lakes are vital to their environments because they regulate the population of phytoplankton and bacteria.

(Image: a close-up of somebody's hand holding some water and 9 red fairy shrimp. End ID)

Fairy shrimp are a major food source to many animals, especially birds. Their isolated or inhospitable habitats keep fairy shrimp safe from many predators, such as fish, but not from birds. Ducks and flamingos are some of the most prominent predators of fairy shrimp. Birds also help spread the shrimp, as the cysts can stick to their bodies or even pass through their digestive systems to be carried to other pools. Humans have also started using fairy shrimp as fish food in aquariums and aquaculture. There is now a multi-million dollar industry based around the Great Salt Lake in Utah and Mono Lake and San Fransisco Bay in California based around harvesting cysts and adult fairy shrimp for sale. The fairy shrimp used in aquaculture are almost all brine shrimp of the genus Artemia. Brine shrimp are also used as model organisms in science and as novelty pets under the brand name of sea monkeys. Brine shrimp cysts are easy to find in many pet and aquarium supply stores and will hatch quickly once exposed to water. Many wild fairy shrimp populations are threatened. Because of how isolated their pools can be, any damage to the pool can endanger the species. Pollution and habitat loss are threatening many species while human-caused movement of fairy shrimp cysts to new pools can lead to them harming native species.

(Image: a magazine advertisement for sea monkeys, featuring a long text listing dubious facts about the animals, an order form, and an illustration of a nuclear family of anthropomorphic sea monkets that look like fish people with three antennae. End ID)

[hooperdrivestheboat]

Live Sea Monkeys necklace, 1969

[oldshowbiz]

put some clothes on

[metaphoricallyrose]

doodle comic

[civetcider]

I need you to know how HILARIOUS it is that Seal taped a banana on the sub, considering how notoriously bad luck bananas are on sea vessels.