According to officials at Wupatki National Monument, hundreds of strange, prehistoric-looking dinosaur shrimps hatched from small eggs and began swimming around a makeshift lake on the desert terrain during a severe summer rainstorm in northern Arizona.
Triops, which are the size of tadpoles, "look like little mini-horseshoe crabs with three eyes," according to Lauren Carter, lead interpretive ranger at Wupatki National Monument.
According to Central Michigan University, their eggs can remain dormant in the desert for decades until enough rain falls to form lakes that offer real estate and time for the hatchlings to grow and produce eggs for the next generation.
According to a life cycle description from Central Michigan University, the Triops' eggs hatched at that period, and the tiny animals presumably began filter feeding within hours. After that, they went through numerous molts, exactly like other crustaceans, until completely developing in just over a week.
Triops males and females typically pair up to mate by sexual reproduction, but in times of scarcity, they have other options; these crustaceans are also hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female sex organs, and parthenogenetic, meaning females can produce offspring from unfertilized eggs, according to BioKids, a collaboration between the University of Michigan School of Education, the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and the University of Michigan School of Public Health
Triops may survive for up to 90 days, but Carter claimed the pond beside the ball court only lasted three to four weeks. After that, local birds took notice very quickly, with ravens and common nighthawks flying down into the lake to eat the animals, she saw.
It's impossible to say how many Triops laid eggs before the lake dried up. To find out, Rangers would have to wait till the next monsoon.
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