Good-bye little Aquasaurs 02_09_2007
Today we lost
the last of our little Aquasaur friends. Margaret was given a super cool Aquasaur
kit for her birthday. Thanks Katie!!!! We finally put them in water on 11_25_2006
and they hatched around 11_27_2006.
click
to play video
Our Triops friends just a few days old 12_02_2006
The
real name for our aquasaurs is Triops longicaudatus and they have been on earth
for 350 million years. Triops is for their "three eyes." They are a
type of crustacean, sometimes called tadpole shrimp or shield shrimp, and look
much like a horseshoe crab, or a trilobite.
For more detailed
info, try these sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notostraca
http://mytriops.com/articles/triops_species.stm
http://www.netfysh.com/home.html?http://www.netfysh.com/instantpets/triops/faq.html
They were fast growers, molting nearly every day, which made
water changes a bit disturbing. The molts were like transparent versions of themselves.
Good thing they have adapted to life in brackish water, because we were not exactly
prompt on the water changes, and the algae took over fairly quickly.
click
to play video
The last Triops, adult 01_19_2007
Our
last little guy was starting to look a little slow at around 70 days old. The
other two 'saurs had kicked off about a month earlier. The Triops lifespan is
between 20-90 days, so I guess we kept our buddy for a long time. We'll miss the
sound of the gravel scraping against the bottom of the tank in the middle of the
night. Thank you, little Triops.
