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 tadpole-like creatures swimming in one of the pools. So they quickly

00:34alerted the rangers and they said, hey, I saw the tadpoles in the pond at the ball court.

00:41There it is. Look at that. It looks like a little alien. Turns out it's a crustacean.

00:46Oh, 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 its purpose was. I did ask the ranger if it was used for something similar

01:05like the Maya ball game. But she says they're just not sure. It's actually not in the same shape as

01:10the Maya ball game court. So perhaps it's entirely different. But...

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

01:19Right. It's perfect for the vernal pool that formed.

01:22So to learn what this visitor was talking about, one of the rangers I spoke with her,

01:28her name is Lauren Carter, a lead interpretation ranger at Wupaki National Monument. She went down

01:34and scooped one up. You're looking at her hand right there. She says these creatures are known as

01:39triops. And they look like little mini horseshoe crabs with three eyes. And yeah, look at those eyes

01:45there. So it has two compound eyes, which are common among arthropods, which is this massive group

01:52that includes insects, arachnids, scorpions, crustaceans. I mentioned this particular creature

01:58is a crustacean. And then 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 prominent.

02:27You can see it right in the middle. But yeah, it's got three eyes. And that's how it got its name.

02:33Triops 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 for decades.

02:47And then once there's a heavy rainfall and these vernal pools form, they pop. So like they hatch.

02:54And within hours, they start gobbling up as much food as possible. So they can filter feed,

03:01they can nibble on, you know, seeds and leaves and roots. If it's like a scarce food situation,

03:09they can even cannibalize each other. Oh, no. So I feel bad for the smaller ones. They're probably

03:15more the prey for the larger triops. Is that probably what happened to his poor little missing

03:20left arm there? Because I'm looking at these other ones, you know, from stock images and

03:25they seem a little bit more even. I did notice that. Yeah. I'm not sure how he broke his little

03:30appendage. Poor, poor dude. Yeah. At least it doesn't appear he was entirely

03:37eaten or whatever happened to him.

03:39Yeah. 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, they're crustaceans,

03:47just like crabs and lobsters. And then they reach adulthood really fast, just over a week,

03:53I think eight or nine days, they reach adulthood. And they're ready to mate again, start the next

03:58generation. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And 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. And they have a few nicknames.

04:13So, you know, they're called triops. That's their genus name. But sometimes they're called tadpole shrimp.

04:20They're also known as dinosaur shrimp because they have this long evolutionary history. Their ancestors

04:27date back to the Denovian period, which lasted from 419 million to 359 million years ago.

04:35And they look pretty much 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, I think this is a term that gets

04:51thrown around, but it turns out that a lot of scientists really hate it. And Carter, the ranger I

04:57spoke with, she told me, I don't like the term living fossil because it causes a misunderstanding

05:04with the public that they haven't changed at all, but they have changed. They have evolved. It's just

05:10that the outward appearance of them is very similar to what they were millions of years ago. So put

05:16another way, they do look the same, but they are not the same. They have evolved. Their internal

05:24processes are different, at least some of them.

05:26Oh, they're not finding. And this is all just because of that insane rain that they had.

05:34Yeah. Yeah. They were, I guess the pond lasted three to four weeks is what Carter told me. So,

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

05:47You 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 a partner of

06:01the opposite sex. And it turns out that triops are hermaphrodites as well, which means they have both

06:07male and female organs. So they, they have that flexibility and they're also parthenogenic, which means

06:16the, the females can produce, produce offspring from unfertilized eggs. So they don't need a male

06:23to, to spawn the next generation. More power to them. That's, I get,

06:28and that's why they've been around for so long. That's, that's pretty cool.

06:31Yeah. It's a pretty cool superpower.

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