Yesterday, Danny found an unopened Sea Monkey set I gave him last christmas. To be honest, I think it got forgotten in the excitement of snorkeling among far larger sea-beasts of the Poor Knights Islands. Anyway, whatever the reason, we decided the time had come to awaken our sleeping Sea Monkeys...
What the #@$& are Sea Monkeys?
Well, for a start they're not monkeys. Which is rather obvious, but still highly disappointing. They're also in no way marine. Which makes the whole Sea Monkey thing something of a sham. Yet they've been a popular toy for kids (of all ages) since the 1950s and no-one really seems to mind that they're actually a rather grotesque and practically microscopic shrimp that spends the entirety of its brief existence swimming around in extremely salty puddles!
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| Brine shrimp (Artemia monica) from Mono Lake ©djpmapleferryman |
The scientific name for the Sea Monkey is Artemia nyos. The nyos part is an acronym of New York Ocean Science. You see, Sea Monkeys are not only a registered trademark - they're a completely artificial breed! They were created by American Harold von Braunhut in 1957, in the middle of a nationwide craze for ant farms.
Day One: Creating A Happy Home
Like great big kids with god-complexes, we set about bringing our little underwater kingdom to life. Day one is spent "colony building", i.e filling the tank with tepid water, and adding the 'water purifier' (which actually includes Sea Monkey eggs and food too). Tomorrow, we add the "Instant Life Eggs". I'm almost too excited to sleep!
If you just can't wait for the next installment, you can spoil the surprise by visiting the Official Sea Monkey Website.
Wonderful article! Happy happy joy joy! I think it's interesting that they're not found in the sea. They could easily be marine. They live in salty water, in salt lakes and in salty pools. So the fact that they're not found in the ocean is, Wikipedia tells me, likely due to their vulnerability to predation. My aquarium fish love to eat them, for example. People are funny; most pets we keep are artificial breeds - all those cute but frou-frou dogs and cats that wouldn't last a day in the wild. We can't even keep a water flea without it having to be all special like.
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