Some other types of fairy shrimp have protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, limiting the use of the land they inhabit. The Idaho National Guard does not train in the dry lake beds and so does not likely pose a risk to the animals, she said. Since the shrimp are tough to find, scientists aren't yet sure just how many of the new species live in those pools. Out of 22 playas in the land used for training for the Idaho National Guard, only two were found to hold the shrimp. It is too soon to know how common the big shrimp are, Quinney said. "Then, if they don't encounter prey for a while - because they have to eat often - then they will move on up and have a picnic lunch,'' Quinney said. The big shrimp can hang onto as many as four of the smaller victims as needed. If another tiny shrimp is found, the bigger animal moves the first catch further down its abdomen, making room to save the second catch. "They grab them, bite them - probably don't kill them but reduce the activity level - and clamp them to the body with these little flaps,'' Quinney said. When the playas begin to run out of the tinier shrimp, they catch and store their prey for future eating. The shrimp have apparently evolved ways to deal with a scarce food source. They sweep the water with these big tail segments and if they contact a prey then they go for it,'' she said. "They swim all the time unless it's really cold and they capture and kill smaller fairy shrimp. Like other fairy shrimp, the animals swim upside down, with their legs toward the water's surface. They prefer to live in the opaque, brown pools known as playas that only occur during good water years. It's no wonder that the animals were only recently discovered, Quinney said.
The new species also have a unique long, tapered and forked tail and the males have much longer antennas than other fairy shrimp. The belly of the shrimp is covered with patches of Velcro-like spikes, enabling it to stick to and store up to four smaller fairy shrimp of different species - its prey. The new species has several spines on its front legs, and each spine is covered with several more, even smaller spines. This one is really, really, really different from all the other species in the world.'' "Many species of fairy shrimp look very much alike and it not only takes an expert but it takes an expert and a good microscope to tell them apart.
"If you're just a little biologist like me, you're kind of a generalist,'' she said. It took them nearly 9 years to compare the animal to the existing species and realize they had something entirely different. Though the animals have been given a Latin name, Quinney is reluctant to reveal it until an article describing the species is published in a scientific journal, possibly next winter.ĭana Quinney and a colleague, Jay Weaver, first noticed the carnivorous shrimp in 1996. There are already about 300 species of fairy shrimp worldwide, Quinney said, but only three other species boast the size of the newly discovered ones. That is huge for a fairy shrimp,'' biologist Dana Quinney said Tuesday during a press conference announcing the discovery.
"This is a large, predatory fairy shrimp.
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