I'm sure it won't come as too much of a surprise that there is only one male Sea-Monkey left. He has a harem of three females, and I'm sure he's enjoying his "last man left on earth" status. At least until the exertion kills him.
When I came in this morning I observed that the Ocean-Zoo was very chilly after sitting in the windowsill all night. It doesn't seem to bother the adults, but I only see one baby in there now. I think the fall/winter plan will be to return the Sea-Monkeys to my desktop, at least at night. I don't want to come in one day and find little shrimpsicles frozen to the sides of the tank. "Think of the children," that's my new motto.
The Official Sea-Monkey Handbook says that Sea-Monkeys can "adapt to cooler climates such as found in Northern Europe and Canada." Aside from the fact that this seems to imply that people in Northern Europe and Canada never heat their houses when it's cold, it does serve to allay some of my worries.
The miracle of Sea-Monkey Instant Life is that if all the tank denizens die off, I can let all the water evaporate, get another package of Water Purifier, and stir in fresh water. Apparently the scum at the bottom of the tank is just chock-full of Sea-Monkey eggs in "suspended animation" (I won't quibble about the "suspended" part, but "animation"?).
Anyway, these eggs will only hatch after a second or third round of dehydration. The Handbook goes into a creepy riff about bringing your dead Sea-Monkeys back to life, which is a) not accurate, and b) conjures up images of "Night of the Living Dead Sea-Monkeys." This pales in comparison to the description of "Necroovoviviparity," which you Latin scholars can guess means eggs hatching within the bodies of dead Sea-Monkey mothers. Eeeeww!
So that's this week's news on the crustacean front. Try not to lose any sleep over it!
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