Brine Shrimp
Brine shrimp (Artemia) are tiny crustaceans that thrive in salt lakes too salty for most other animals, such as Great Salt Lake in Utah. Their drought-proof eggs are sold as 'sea monkeys' and as food for fish larvae.
Brine shrimp (Artemia) are tiny crustaceans that thrive in salt lakes too salty for most other animals, such as Great Salt Lake in Utah. Their drought-proof eggs are sold as "sea monkeys" and as food for fish larvae.
🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Brine Shrimp in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Ecdysozoa lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.
Eggs That Wait: Cryptobiosis
Female brine shrimp produce cysts that dry out and enter a suspended state in which metabolism nearly stops. The cysts can survive for years in the dry state and hatch within a day when placed in salt water. This ability is called cryptobiosis.
Living in Brine
The shrimp pump out excess salt through their gills and make their blood hemoglobin in low-oxygen water, which turns them red. They feed on algae and bacteria.
An Aquaculture Staple
Newly hatched brine shrimp are the standard first food for the larvae of fish and shrimp in hatcheries. The animals sold as "sea monkeys" since the 1950s are a hybrid strain bred for toy kits.
Brine Shrimp at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Artemia salina |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Arthropoda |
| Class | Branchiopoda |
| Order | Anostraca |
| Family | Artemiidae |
| Field Guide group | Ecdysozoa: Mandibulata (Mandibulates) |
| Diagnostic feature (Field Guide) | Translucent fairy-shrimp body swimming upside down on 11 pairs of leaf-like gill-legs; survives in hypersaline lakes; dormant cysts ('Sea-Monkeys'). |
| Genus | Artemia |
| Egg state | Dormant cysts |