triops

Not Dead Animals - Weekly Recap

User Image zooillogix | September 11, 2008
A quick wrap-up of the animals discovered not to be extinct this week: Armoured mistfrog This Armoured Mistfrog, thought by many experts to be extinct due to the recent amphibian chytrid fungus epidemic, was rediscovered by my boss, enterprise search god, Chris Cleveland, while he should have been working, on CNN. And more specifically, in a remote tropical area in northern Australia. Tadpole Shrimp Heavy rains in Scotland have created perfect conditions for the reemergence of the tadpole shrimp, thought extinct in the UK until recently. The little critter resembles a tiny horseshoe crab…

Sea Monkeys on Steroids

User Image zooillogix | June 20, 2007
Triops australiensisWhere the hell were these things when I was a kid? Triops are small crustaceans in the class branchiopoda, that grow quickly and massively, reaching three inches or longer at full size. Their external appearance has apparently not changed since the appearance of Triops cancrifromis, 220 million years ago in the Triassic Period. This may make the Triops, also called tadpole shrimp or shield shrimp, the oldest living animal species on earth. An adorable triops eating a piece of corn. This playful behavior in juveniles has a very practical application in adulthood, when…