Hundreds of Dinosaur Shrimp Emerge After Arizona Monsoon

Live Science

Hundreds of three-eyed ancient creatures called triops emerge after heavy rainfall in Arizona. Their eggs can stay dormant for decades, waiting for water.

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00:00 It's no surprise that Northern Arizona

00:02 is a very dry place, it's a desert,

00:05 but sometimes they get a lot of rain.

00:07 And that is exactly what happened

00:09 the last week and a half of July of this year.

00:12 The region got almost five inches of rain,

00:15 which is nearly 13 centimeters.

00:18 And when it rains so much in the desert,

00:20 these temporary ponds known as vernal pools form.

00:25 And at Wupaki National Monument,

00:27 some visitors noticed these like tadpole-like creatures

00:32 swimming in one of the pools.

00:33 So they quickly alerted the rangers and they said,

00:36 "Hey, I saw the tadpoles in the pond at the ball court."

00:39 There it is, look at that, it looks like a little alien.

00:43 Turns out it's a crustacean.

00:46 - Oh yeah, oh, here's the ball court.

00:48 What is the ball court for, do you know?

00:51 - Right, so the indigenous people of the region

00:53 built this ceremonial ball court.

00:56 And we're actually not sure what its purpose was.

01:00 I did ask the ranger if it was used for something similar

01:05 like the Maya ball game, but she says,

01:07 "They're just not sure."

01:08 It's actually not in the same shape

01:10 as the Maya ball game court,

01:11 so perhaps it's entirely different.

01:13 - Great breeding ground to just hold

01:17 a lot of these little creatures, yeah.

01:19 - Right, it's perfect for the vernal pool that formed.

01:23 So to learn what this visitor was talking about,

01:26 one of the rangers, I spoke with her,

01:28 her name is Lauren Carter, a lead interpretation ranger

01:31 at Wupatki National Monument.

01:33 She went down and scooped one up,

01:34 you're looking at her hand right there.

01:37 She says, "These creatures are known as triops,

01:40 "and they look like little mini horseshoe crabs

01:42 "with three eyes."

01:44 And yeah, look at those eyes there.

01:46 So it has two compound eyes,

01:48 which are common among arthropods,

01:50 which is this massive group that includes insects,

01:53 arachnids, scorpions, crustaceans.

01:56 I mentioned this particular creature is a crustacean.

02:00 And then it has a third eye,

02:01 look at that little dot between its two main eyes.

02:04 - Oh, it's so zen.

02:06 - I know, it looks very wise.

02:08 So that third eye actually senses light.

02:11 And the third eye is actually quite common among arthropods.

02:17 And it turns out, like for example, bees,

02:20 they have their two compound eyes

02:22 and they have three simple eyes.

02:24 So this one is very prominent,

02:26 you can see it right in the middle.

02:30 But yeah, it's got three eyes

02:32 and that's how it got its name,

02:33 triops means three eyes in Greek.

02:36 - Cool, so how long can they stay dormant?

02:40 - That's kind of their survival trick,

02:42 it's so dry in the desert,

02:44 they can stay in their eggs for decades.

02:47 And then once there's a heavy rainfall

02:49 and these vernal pools form,

02:52 they pop to life, they hatch.

02:54 And within hours,

02:55 they start gobbling up as much food as possible.

02:58 So they can filter feed,

03:01 they can nibble on seeds and leaves and roots.

03:06 If it's like a scarce food situation,

03:09 they can even cannibalize each other.

03:12 - Oh no.

03:13 - So I feel bad for the smaller ones,

03:14 they're probably more the prey for the larger triops.

03:18 - Is that probably what happened

03:19 to his poor little missing left arm there?

03:21 'Cause I'm looking at these other ones,

03:23 from stock images and they seem a little bit more even.

03:27 - I did notice that,

03:28 yeah, I'm not sure how he broke his little appendage.

03:31 Poor dude.

03:33 At least it doesn't appear he was entirely eaten

03:38 or whatever happened to him.

03:40 - Yeah, tell me more about these little creatures,

03:42 they're kind of cool looking.

03:43 - I know, so after they've eaten a lot,

03:45 they molt a few times,

03:47 they're crustaceans just like crabs and lobsters.

03:50 And then they reach adulthood really fast,

03:52 just over a week, I think eight or nine days,

03:54 they reach adulthood and they're ready to mate again,

03:57 start the next generation.

03:59 - Oh my goodness.

04:01 - Yeah, and you can tell by looking at this photo,

04:04 but they're not that big.

04:05 They're about 1.5 inches long,

04:08 which is about four centimeters.

04:11 And they have a few nicknames.

04:13 So, they're called triops, that's their genus name,

04:17 but sometimes they're called tadpole shrimp.

04:20 They're also known as dinosaur shrimp

04:22 'cause they have this long evolutionary history.

04:26 Their ancestors date back to the Danobian period,

04:29 which lasted from 419 million to 359 million years ago.

04:34 And they look pretty much the same as their ancestors did,

04:38 it's really impressive.

04:40 - Yeah, I mean, but because they're so old,

04:44 can we call them living fossils?

04:46 - Oh my gosh, I'm really glad you asked that

04:48 because I think this is a term that gets thrown around,

04:52 but it turns out that a lot of scientists really hate it.

04:55 And Carter, the ranger I spoke with,

04:58 she told me, "I don't like the term living fossil

05:02 because it causes a misunderstanding with the public

05:05 that they haven't changed at all,

05:07 but they have changed, they have evolved.

05:10 It's just that the outward appearance of them

05:12 is very similar to what they were millions of years ago."

05:16 So, put another way, they do look the same,

05:19 but they are not the same, they have evolved,

05:21 their internal processes are different,

05:26 at least some of them.

05:27 So, yeah. - Oh, yeah, I'm finding.

05:30 And this is all just because of that insane reign

05:33 that they had.

05:34 - Yeah, yeah, they were, I guess the pond lasted

05:38 three to four weeks is what Carter told me.

05:42 So, I said they reach adulthood quite rapidly

05:45 and then it's time to mate, so how do they mate?

05:47 A male and a female might find each other

05:51 and the female will lay eggs,

05:53 but their circumstances are so, it's so interesting.

05:58 Like maybe they won't be able to find a partner

06:01 of the opposite sex,

06:02 and it turns out that triops are hermaphrodites as well,

06:06 which means they have both male and female organs.

06:08 - So, they can stay with themselves.

06:10 - Yeah, so they have that flexibility

06:13 and they're also parthenogenic,

06:16 which means the females can produce offspring

06:19 from unfertilized eggs, so they don't need a male

06:23 to spawn the next generation.

06:26 - More power to them, that's I guess,

06:27 and that's why they've been around for so long,

06:29 that's pretty cool.

06:31 Yeah, it's a pretty cool superpower.

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