The recent 100-year floods weren’t the only rarity to hit Jefferson County this fall.
The Jefferson County Open Space natural resources crew was a bit stumped when workers in a flooded section of a conservation easement on Open Space property sent in a photo of what they thought was a horseshoe crab, a saltwater animal. After some research, Open Space officials learned it was a longtail tadpole shrimp, a smaller but similar-looking freshwater crustacean.
The curious crustacean might have stumped Open Space staff for a while, but is it a groundbreaking discovery? Not so much.
“It’s not like this is some rare thing, but I think what kind of gives them the perception of being rare is their ability to be in the egg state of their life cycle,” Lisa Kluesner, natural resource specialist for Jeffco Open Space, said.
The crustacean, which can grow up to 3 inches in length, is actually fairly common throughout the world, Kluesner said, but rarer in Colorado because of the state’s dry weather. The floods changed that.
“Seeing how dry we are out in Colorado and flood events aren’t very common out here, this 100-year-flood event was the perfect event to allow these little things to hatch,” Kluesner said.
Adult longtail tadpole shrimp can live from 20 to 90 days, but it’s the lifetime of its eggs that is so notable. The eggs must be laid in wet conditions, then dry out and be rewetted in order to hatch. They can wait up to 20 years for the proper hatching conditions.
According to the website , the shrimp (Triops longicaudatus) is considered a living fossil because its basic morphology has changed little in the last 70 million years, exactly matching ancient fossils. It is one of the oldest animal species still in existence.
Kluesner said she dug into researching these creatures and found a pleasant surprise.
“These little guys are considered top of the food chain within their specific type of habitat,” she said, meaning that it feeds on species likes the mosquito. “The potential for them to be West Nile virus combaters is fairly significant.”
Kluesner said that the workers who found the crustacean are a good example of how hikers and residents should react in open space when they see something they don’t recognize.
“What this more so boils down to is that the crews working in the area at the time had a really good eye,” Kluesner said.
“To me, it’s just an indicator that we should always keep our eyes open to the natural landscape. No matter how much we think we know a particular location, nature will always continue to give us little surprises.”
