Quite a few years back one of our neighbors stopped by, and asked me about "them prehistoric tadpoles."

What he described was small creatures, about 2-3 inches long, that they found in some puddles at the Buffalo Pit. Said they looked like armored tadpoles. Bony head and body, long skinny scaled tail that split in two. Bright, blood red gills on the bottom.

I had no idea.

When I started college my folks bought me a thick Encyclopedia of Animal Life. It was never much use with university classes... too general. But it's been handy a few times since.

Like this one.

Started looking under crustaceans, and lucked out. There it was, in a photo.

A notostracan.

Probably genus Triops.

Sometimes called "tadpole shrimp."

My best stab at a description is imagine a horseshoe crab about 1" wide, then stick on a forked, scaly tail for another inch or two.

Went out to check these strange creatures he found, and there they were. Dozens of them in small pools in the sandstone. Brought a few home a couple times, but they never lasted more than a day.

They're omnivores, scraping up anything they can to eat. Suspect I didn't have enough scum, bacteria and organic debris to keep them healthy (most of the puddles they occupied were filled with clumps of cow manure).

They're a relative of brine shrimp ("sea monkeys"). And reproduce the same way. Laying hard, durable eggs that last for years and get blown around by the wind. When they get soaked, they hatch, grow and breed within a week.

Finally got smart and just collected some of the dry dirt one year (these rock puddles, or tinajas are more often dry than wet) and put it in an aquarium. Got a couple notostracans (and several dozen anostracans ("fairy shrimp"), a soft-shelled relative) that survived for a week or so.

Anyway, our route this morning ends at the Buffalo Pit. Even though it's been a drought year, I figured the heelers and I should check out the pits, and at least run around the rocks.

But there's been some rain in the past few weeks. Most of the larger pools had water.

And notostracans.

Thousands of 'em!

Literally. Swarms of them, covering the muddy shores and flipping over each other. A quick estimate had over 120 in one square foot.

Between 50,000-70,000 in the biggest pool. Incredible. Just reach in and scoop up a dozen or so.Don't know if they can bite. The front chelae are certainly hard enough, and curved.

Smaller pools had fewer, and therefore larger, "horseshoe crab tadpoles." Measured one at 7.5 cm.

California has an endangered species of notostracan, with a bright yellow carapace (Is everything bright and flashy in that state?). But ours are an olive green. Their dozens of limbs are bright red, like gills, and in constant, rythmic motion. When they swim upside down feeding on the surface scum, they're blood red.

Found a website with a decent photo, and I suspect it is the same species:

Found a couple empty beer bottles (the Pits are getting more and more trashed every year) and collected water and organism samples from a couple pools. But no notostracans. If it doesn't rain, most of them only have a few days of life left, but that is more than they would get at our place. At least here they can breed and continue their line.

Did collect some mud.

We've got three "jar ponds" on our plant table in the living room. All have dried up several times over the decade or so we've had them, and not much left now but ostracods and algae. So now one has the red silverfish-like shrimp, daphnia and small clams, and another has the anostracans.

The third is growing one of the boys' bamboo shoot.

Ran into one of the Highway Department guys at the construction on the way home. He asked what I was up to.

Showed him the two beer bottles in my lap.

Corked with cow manure.