OK. So it's not an ivory-billed woodpecker, but Eric Lazo-Wasem rediscovered Eubranchipus holmanii in a freshwater pond in Groton, CT. It's the first time the species has been seen in Connecticut for 50 years. What's Eubranchipus holmanii you ask? A fairy shrimp.What's a fairy shrimp?
Well, fairy shrimp are small crustaceans that often occur in vernal pools and other ephemeral pools. They belong to the order Anostraca, which also includes brine shrimp. As their name suggests, brine shrimp occur in salty bodies of water like the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea, but they don't occur in the ocean. You can learn more about them at Wikipedia.
Why does any of this matter, other than it being pretty cool that a species that hasn't been seen for 50 years has been found again? Because I learned about it on the front page of yesterday's Hartford Courant1. I'm delighted to see that a story like this appear on the front page of a paper. It reminds all of us that there's a tremendous amount of biodiversity in our own back yard and that there's still a lot we don't know about it.
Well, fairy shrimp are small crustaceans that often occur in vernal pools and other ephemeral pools. They belong to the order Anostraca, which also includes brine shrimp. As their name suggests, brine shrimp occur in salty bodies of water like the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea, but they don't occur in the ocean. You can learn more about them at Wikipedia.
Why does any of this matter, other than it being pretty cool that a species that hasn't been seen for 50 years has been found again? Because I learned about it on the front page of yesterday's Hartford Courant1. I'm delighted to see that a story like this appear on the front page of a paper. It reminds all of us that there's a tremendous amount of biodiversity in our own back yard and that there's still a lot we don't know about it.
1If you click through to the Courant article, you'll see that the specific epithet is spelled holmani there rather than holmanii. I'm spelling it holmannii because that's the spelling that the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) suggests is correct. The listing for holmani at ITIS designates its taxonomic status as "invalid - unavailable, literature misspelling". From the ITIS website: "ITIS provides the taxonomic backbone to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The EOL page for Eubranchipus holmanii has taxonomic information from ITIS, but no other information is currently available there.
Leave a comment