Fairy Shrimp Revisited (video)

Fairy Shrimp 3/8/21

Though we've already had a look at fairy shrimp (blog post 3/8/21), I had the chance to video the cool swimming motion when I ended up with some fairy shrimp along with the tiny crayfish I wrote about last post.  Check out the video below to see the 11 pairs of legs moving in a wave-like pattern. Almost hypnotic! Also, interestingly, at about 9 seconds into the video the fairy shrimp swims past a floating particle in the water that then gets trapped in the currents generated by the legs and circles around above the fairy shrimp as it swims along. Fairy shrimp legs, in addition to locomotion, also aid in filtering food and respiration. No wonder they need eleven pairs!


Fairy Shrimp Swimming, 3/15/21




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