Kingdom: Animalia

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Kingdom Animalia Phylum Arthropoda Class
Crustacea Order Anostraca Family
Chirocephalidae Genus Chirocephalus
Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp (Branchinecta
lynchi) By Niamh Gordon
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Description
The vernal pool fairy shrimp are species of
Crustaceans found in vernal pools which are
shallow-like puddles or pools. The fairy shrimp
have tons of little feet. Fairy shrimp are also
usually transparent.
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Vernal Pools
Many vernal pools are in the northeast. Vernal
pools are best known in California, Oregon and
Washington.
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Habitat
The Vernal Pool Fairy shrimp lives and often
appear in vernal pools, pot holes and other
pools. A vernal pool is usually a shallow-like
puddle or pool that fills with the rising water
table or with the melted water and rain of
spring. Unlike a river that feeds into the ocean
or sea, it has nothing to release its water to.
So, it will either dry up from the sun or will
have a good layer of ice on the top in the
winter.

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Size

• Vernal pool Fairy Shrimp are generally 1 1.5
  inches long. Although there have been some
  cases that they are 25 millimeters. Thats Really
  small!

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Prey or Predators?
? Most of the animals in the Vernal Pools will
only eat plants -So the Fairy
shrimp doesnt need to worry about
predators ?Vernal pool tadpole shrimp are
predators -They feed on other
invertebrates in the pools ?If the Fairy Shrimp
doesn't have strong genes, the disease or
other threat will kill them off.
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Life Span

• The vernal pool fairy shrimp has a life span
  from December to early May (if water
• temperature stays below 75 F). Thats only living
  for 5-6 months. Not even a year!

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Fairy Shrimp Food

• Vernal pool fairy shrimp are filter and
• suspension feeders. Their diet is mainly made
  up of unicellular algae, bacteria, and ciliates.
  They may also scrape algae, diatoms and protists
  from the surface of rocks, sticks and plant stems.

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Reproduction

Fairy Shrimp adults lay there eggs by the winter
season. However the eggs may lie dormant for as
much as Ten years before hatching. This happens
because the Fairy Shrimp cant survive the cold
of the water in the winter, and can live without
water in the summer when its all dried out.

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Fun Fact!

• The Fairy Shrimp that inhabit vernal pools are
  very small, but some species of Fairy Shrimp are
  huge. One species, Branchinecta gigas, lives in
  muddy, plant-less, desert lakes, and can grow to
  150 mm. That's about the size of a hot dog!
  Compared to 25 mm thats a lot!

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Resources
Thank You For Listening
Encyclopedia Wikipedia, author unknown. Fairy
shrimp. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 14 Apr.
2006 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_shrimp. W
ikipedia, author unknown. Vernal pool. Wikipedia
the Free Encyclopedia. 14 Apr. 2006
lthttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_poolsgt Web
Sites Fairy shrimp. 13 Apr. 2006
http//www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_te
rrestrial_and_freshwater/Chirocephalus_diaphanus/m
ore_info.htm California Department of
Pesticide Regulation Endangered Species Project.
Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp and Vernal Poll Tadpole
Shrimp. 15 Apr. 2006 lthttp//www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/
es/espdfs/vpool1.pdfgt Mather Field Vernal Pools
. 17 Apr. 2006 lthttp//www.sacsplash.org/critter
s/fairyshr.htmgt