Land Down Under

TRIOPS ARE AUSTRALIAN!!!

No kidding, those squirmy little things Jodi and I called "pets" last year are actually shield shrimp, and they live in the Australian deserts. Their eggs remain dormant for up to 25 years (which is why we could buy them in a package), and once a big rain falls the eggs become active and they hatch and quickly reproduce. The first generation are all female so that they can reproduce as soon as they mature, and then the next generation's eggs, the ones that are fertilized by the males, are the ones that can survive for years by being dormant. They reproduce until the ponds created by the rain dry up, when the eggs just wait until the next big rain to hatch. How cool is that?? And Jodi and I just thought they were some radioactive-looking, gross, dumb little fishy things that just seemed to want to jump out of the bowl and into the toilet (prompting me to save them with a plastic spoon....don't worry, I didn't reuse the spoon afterwards).

Later tonight my corridor is invited to go eat desserts with important people. I don't really know too much about it, except that last year apparently there were pancakes? Yummmmm. Speaking of pancakes, they don't have maple syrup here! There are no maple trees! They have to eat fake syrup. It's very sad. Okay I think I've spent enough time tonight doing absolutely nothing productive, I'm going to go finish my biology activity that's due on Friday. One of the questions is about shield shrimp. I'll bet not many kids can say they had some as pets!

posted by Christina @ 7:27 PM