Dinosaur Shrimp Emerges After Arizona Monsoon

Live Science

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

Transcript

00:00It's no surprise that northern Arizona is a very dry place. It's a desert. But sometimes they get

00:06a lot of rain. And that is exactly what happened the last week and a half of July of this year.

00:12The region got almost five inches of rain, which is nearly 13 centimeters. And when it rains so

00:19much in the desert, these temporary ponds known as vernal pools form. And at Wipaki National Monument,

00:27some visitors notice these like tadpole-like creatures swimming in one of the pools.

00:34So they quickly alerted the rangers and they said, hey, I saw the tadpoles in the pond at

00:38the ball courts. There it is. Look at that. It looks like a little alien. Turns out it's

00:44a crustacean. Oh, yeah. Oh, here's the ball court. What is the ball court for? Do you know?

00:51Right. So the indigenous people of the region built this ceremonial ball court. And we're

00:57actually not sure what it was, what its purpose was. I did ask the ranger if it, you know, was

01:03used for something similar, like the Maya ball game. But she says they're just not sure. It's

01:08actually not in the same shape as the Maya ball game court. So perhaps it's entirely different.

01:14But great breeding ground to just hold a lot of these little creatures. Yeah.

01:19Right. It's perfect for the vernal pool that formed. So to learn what this visitor was

01:25talking about, one of the rangers, I spoke with her. Her name is Lauren Carter, a lead

01:30interpretation ranger at Wupatki National Monument. She went down and scooped one up. You're looking

01:35at her hand right there. She says these creatures are known as triops and they look like little mini

01:42horseshoe crabs with three eyes. And yeah, look at those eyes there. So it has two compound eyes

01:48which are common among arthropods, which is this massive group that includes insects, arachnids,

01:54scorpions, crustaceans. I mentioned this particular creature is a crustacean. And

02:00then it has a third eye. Look at that little dot between its two main eyes.

02:04Oh, it's so zen. I know. It looks very wise. So that third eye actually senses light.

02:13And the third eye is actually quite common among arthropods. And it turns out, like, for example,

02:19bees, they have their two compound eyes and they have three simple eyes. So this one is very

02:26prominent. You can see it right in the middle. But yeah, it's got three eyes and that's how it

02:32got its name. Triops means three eyes in Greek. Cool. So how long can they stay dormant?

02:40That's kind of their survival trick. It's so dry in the desert. They can stay in their eggs

02:46for decades. And then once there's a heavy rainfall and these vernal pools form, they pop

02:52to life. They hatch. And within hours, they start gobbling up as much food as possible.

02:58So they can filter feed. They can nibble on, you know, seeds and leaves and roots.

03:07If it's like a scarce food situation, they can even cannibalize each other.

03:12Oh, no.

03:13So I feel bad for the smaller ones. They're probably more the prey for the larger triops.

03:18Is that probably what happened to his poor little missing left arm there? Because I'm

03:21looking at these other ones, you know, from stock images, and they seem a little bit more even.

03:27I did notice that. Yeah, I'm not sure how he broke his little appendage. Poor, poor dude.

03:33At least it doesn't appear he was entirely eaten or whatever happened to him.

03:40Yeah, tell me more about these little creatures. They're kind of cool looking.

03:43I know. So after they've eaten a lot, they molt a few times, you know,

03:47they're crustaceans, just like crabs and lobsters. And then they reach adulthood really fast,

03:52just over a week, I think eight or nine days, they reach adulthood.

03:56And they're ready to mate again, start the next generation.

04:01Yeah, you can tell by looking at this photo, but they're not that big.

04:05They're about 1.5 inches long, which is, you know, about four centimeters.

04:11And they have a few nicknames. So you know, they're called triops, that's their genus name.

04:17But sometimes they're called tadpole shrimp. They're also known as dinosaur shrimp,

04:23because they have this long evolutionary history. Their ancestors date back to the

04:28Zenovian period, which lasted from 419 million to 359 million years ago. And they look pretty

04:36much the same as their ancestors did. It's really impressive.

04:40Yeah, I mean, but because they're so old, like, can we call them living fossils?

04:46Oh my gosh, I'm really glad you asked that. Because this is,

04:49I think this is a term that gets thrown around. But it turns out that a lot of scientists really

04:54hate it. And Carter, the ranger I spoke with, she told me, I don't like the term living fossil,

05:02because it causes a misunderstanding with the public that they haven't changed at all.

05:08But they have changed, they have evolved. It's just that the outward appearance of them is very

05:12similar to what they were millions of years ago. So put another way, they do look the same,

05:19but they are not the same. They have evolved, their internal processes are different.

05:26At least some of them. So yeah.

05:30And, and, and this is all just because of that insane reign that they had.

05:35Yeah, yeah, they were, I guess the pond lasted three to four weeks, is what Carter told me.

05:42So you know, I said they reach adulthood quite rapidly. And then it's time to mate. So how do

05:47they mate? You know, a male and a female might find each other and the female will lay eggs.

05:53But their circumstances are so, it's so interesting, like maybe they won't be able to find

06:00a partner of the opposite sex. And it turns out that triops are hermaphrodites as well,

06:06which means they have both male and female organs. So yeah, so they, they have that flexibility.

06:14And they're also parthenogenic, which means the females can produce, produce offspring from

06:19unfertilized eggs, so they don't need a male to spawn the next generation.

06:26More power to them. That's, I guess, and that's why they've been around for so long. That's,

06:30that's pretty cool.

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

Category

Transcript

Recommended