Ten shrimpy pics

[Cehrabehra]

That baby shrimp being born - I bet you may be the leading expert on this stuff now, who else would have pictures like this?? seriously! I've never heard of hydra before, is it plant or what? I'll google it... kudos to you, keep it coming, I love as the shrimp ball turns

 

[kenny]

who else would have pictures like this?? seriously!

Yeah tell that to my SO.
This morning at 1 AM he was yelling at me to stop making noise and go to bed.
(How much noise can a camera shutter make?)
I told him I am witnessing a larva hatching from on egg, and it is a really unique and important thing to catch on film. (well, to a geek like me it was)
He wasn't impressed.
I had to stop and probably would have gotten better pics if I had continued.

Anyway here's a video of a hydra eating a little swimming thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kukv0AtIVdU&feature=related

A couple months ago I wondered why all my baby shrimp were mysteriously vanishing.
When I looked closely I noticed zillions of hydras everywhere in the tank.
They are VERY tiny and green; probably 25 could attach onto one grain of rice.
You really have to concentrate to see them with the naked eye.

They look like a little tree but are animals that reproduce by budding or regeneration.
Hydras are immortal.
Like a plant, a bud forms on the stem; it grows into a new hydra, breaks free and it starts again.
If you chop one up, the pieces each become new hydras.
No egg and sperm needed, though they can do it that way too.

Since their flesh never dies hydras are of great interest to science.
Imagine if the hydra gave us the secret of eternal biological life.