Uncle Milton Aquasaurs - Manual

More than 350 million years ago...
Continents drifted apart, dinosaurs and thousands of other animal species evolved and went
extinct, ice ages passed, humans emerged, entire civilizations rose and fell. Yet Aquasaurs
managed to survive, endure and thrive.
Scientists have given them the long name, Triops longicaudatus (TRY-OPS
LON-GA-CAW-DA-TUS) but we call them Aquasaurs. Aquasaurs are fresh water animals that
belong to the class crustacea (CRUS-TAY-SHA). They are related to shrimps, crabs and lobsters.
Some people call them tadpole shrimp because of their similarity to frog tadpoles. They also
resemble trilobites — extinct creatures that lived more than 500 million years ago — so they
are sometimes called “living fossils.”
Aquasaurs have existed for millions and millions of years. For comparison, we humans have
been on earth for about 2 million years. That’s a very long span of time, but it is far less than
the 350 million years that Aquasaurs have been around. How were they able to survive for so
long? The answer is in their eggs.
Aquasaurs live in small temporary ponds. They lay their eggs in the bottom silt. Whenever the
pond dries out, as during the hot summer season, the eggs can stay in a kind of “sleep mode”
or suspended animation, called diapause (DI-A-PAWS). They can remain this way for up to 20
years! They can resist extremely hot or cold temperatures as well as very dry conditions. When
rainfall returns and ponds reappear, the eggs hatch and new Aquasaurs are born, beginning
their life cycle again.
Instruction Manual
AGES 6 +
1410
Prehistoric Creature Habitat