Branchiopods

A blue-green pigment can be found in most notostracans, but it is more abundant in the genus Lepidurus. This pigment is in higher concentrations in individuals that have grown rapidly under ideal conditions. From my experience, this blue coloration would come and go depending on how recently the shrimp molted, but I do not have outside evidence to back this claim

Tadpole shrimp have a variable amount of appendages between individuals in the same locality. In females, the 11th appendage will eventually grow into the egg sac while in males it remains unmodified

These baby shrimps are already 10x bigger than when they first hatched and have sustained themselves solely off of the detritus and microorganisms in the water. Triops cancriformis lives longer and grows slower than most species, but its rate of growth is still rapid and can reach its adult size in a matter of weeks

Not gonna lie, the eggs look fake in this picture and I would have thought it was edited if I didn't take it myself. You can clearly see how the eggs organize themselves within the egg sac. One shrimp can lay eggs multiple times a day and will produce hundreds (sometimes thousands) of eggs within its lifetime

This picture was taken back in September, but what isn't pictured is the swarm of mosquitoes that attacked me. There were considerably less mosquito larvae in this pool than the surrounding ones which did not contain tadpole shrimp, likely owing to their predation of these larvae

This species can be found throughout the American southwest and Mexico, but has sporadic distributions outside of this range as well. This particular locality is a population of hermaphrodites with a "speckled" carapace and are a bit smaller in size

Males tend to have a smaller, flatter carapace than the females of the same species, but they also usually have a longer "tail." Most species in the hobby-trade are hermaphrodites that have forgone the need for external fertilization, even though most recorded species are gonochoric. Some populations present a sex ratio bias that could lean either direction, with some going so far as to having 1 male for every 100 females

This is an interesting one that has some contradicting information. This subspecies has recently been split into two different lineages, T. c. simplex and T. mauritanicus simplex, but if I were to guess this individual is part of the former. Some literature classifies it as its own species T. simplex. Some sources claim this is a gonochoric species, but this one is a hermaphrodite

I hatched these shrimp a few months back and was never able to get eggs from them, since 8 females hatched with no males. They're not the most graceful of swimmers but still one of my personal favorites!