Hundreds of three-eyed ancient creatures called triops emerges after heavy rainfall in Arizona. Their eggs can stay dormant for decades, waiting for water.
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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 ballgame. But she says they're just not sure. It's actually not in the same shape as
01:10the Maya ballgame 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. So to learn what this visitor was talking
01:26about, one of the rangers, I spoke with her. Her name is Lauren Carter, a lead interpretation
01:31ranger at Wipaki National Monument. She went down and scooped one up. You're looking at her hand
01:36right there. She says these creatures are known as triops and they look like little mini horseshoe crabs
01:43with three eyes. And yeah, look at those eyes there. So it has two compound eyes, which are common among
01:49arthropods, which is this massive group that includes insects, arachnids, scorpions, crustaceans. I
01:56mentioned this particular creature is a crustacean. And then it has a third eye. Look at that little dot
02:03between its two main eyes. Oh, it's so zen. I know. It looks very wise. So that third eye actually
02:11senses light. And the third eye is actually quite common among arthropods. And it turns out like,
02:18for example, bees, they have their two compound eyes and they have three simple eyes. So this one
02:26is very prominent. You can see it right in the middle. But yeah, it's got three eyes. And that's
02:32how it got 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 for decades.
02:47And then once there's a heavy rainfall and these vernal pools form, they pop to life. They hatch. And
02:54within hours, they start gobbling up as much food as possible. So they can filter feed. They can
03:02nibble on seeds and leaves and roots. If it's like a scarce food situation, they can even cannibalize
03:11each other. Oh, no. So I feel bad for the smaller ones. They're probably more the prey
03:16for the larger triops. Is that probably what happened to his poor little missing left arm there?
03:21Because I'm looking at these other ones, you know, from stock images and they seem a little bit more even.
03:26I did notice that. Yeah. I'm not sure how he broke his little appendage. Poor, poor dude. Yeah. At least
03:34it 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, they're crustaceans,
03:48just like crabs and lobsters. And then they reach adulthood really fast. Just over a week. I think
03:53eight or nine days they reach adulthood. And they're ready to mate again. Start the next generation.
03:59Oh my goodness. Yeah. And you can tell by looking at this photo, but they're not that big. They're
04:05about 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
04:19shrimp. They're also known as dinosaur shrimp because they have this long evolutionary history.
04:26Their ancestors date back to the Denovian period, which lasted from 419 million to 359 million years
04:34ago. And 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 thrown
04:51around. But it turns out that a lot of scientists really hate it. And Carter, the ranger I spoke with,
04:58she told me, I don't like the term living fossil because it causes a misunderstanding with the public
05:05that they haven't changed at all. But they have changed. They have evolved. It's just that the
05:11outward appearance of them is very similar to what they were millions of years ago. So put another way,
05:17they 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, that's a good finding. And this is all just because of that insane reign 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?
05:48You 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
06:06both male and female organs. So they have that flexibility and they're also parthenogenic,
06:16which means the females can produce offspring from unfertilized eggs. So they don't need a male
06:23to spawn the next generation. More power to them. And that's why they've been around for so long.
06:29That's, that's pretty cool. Yeah. It's a pretty cool superpower.