TRIOPS:THE KEY TO SURVIVAL

Triops are an unfamiliar thing for many, while for others they are pets. They are really similar to the so called "Sea Monkeys", since for both you get a bowl of water, open the little plastic bag which contains their eggs in the water and from day 1 they have hatched. These creatures have actually been around for more than us, with the "Sea Monkeys"(brine shrimp) beeing 5.5 million years old and the triops being around for 300 MILLION YEARS. You might be wondering now, how did they live so much? Well, that is what we'll look at in today's post.

An Introduction To Triops

Triops is a genus of aquatic crustacean that has first appeared in the fossil record about 300 million years ago, and they have barely changed since then. They usually live in deserts in which the water there is won't last for long so they have a really quick life cycle. They mostly feed on algae,plants and mosquito larvae, even though they can be cannibals. The mosquito larvae-eating behaviour of theirs has also helped us humans fight the West Nile Virus. 

The Key To Survival

You probably are wondering how do some creatures which live in temporary pools have the key to survival. Well, the answer is not on the creatures themselves, rather their eggs. You see, the reason that we can get a pet triop by buying a bag of eggs that has been in a box for more than 9 months, along with the reason they still exist even though the water in which they live evaporates soon is because their eggs stop developing, or more scientifically "dispause" when they are dry. In fact, these small crustaceans and their relatives have adapted to living in such conditions so much that these eggs can tolerate temperatures up to 98 degrees celcious (208 fahrenheit). 

A fossilized Triop

Now, some of you who read a previous post could be wondering :"well, so are their eggs better than the amniotic eggs?". And well, I think this is a hard question. If we think of it, the amniotic egg is much more important, since without it most of life on land would be semi aquatic, while the triop egg (which by the way is not something that only the triops have, as I said in the start many other species such as brine shrimp have the same mechanism) only helped the genus itself stay alive and actually was so perfect that triops look almost identical with what they did in the Mesozoic Era. 

I personally think we should all be thankful that "living fossils" like the triops exist, since they allow us to understand not only what life was back like then, but also help us understand modern zoology.

Anyways, Thank you for reading today's post! I don't want to get annoying, but I would like to inform you again that I have a viber Group! When I reach 5 members (not including myself) I will start making polls for you to vote at! You can join the group either by the link in this blog's sidebar or by clicking HERE

Ok, see you next time! (Finally, another post about fossils! You thought I would replace these petrified beauties with birds? NEVER!)