It stands to reason that if there is complex, multi-cellular life swimming through the sub-surface ocean of Europa (One of Jupiter’s interesting moons) then it could conceivably have something in common with some of the more “obscure” life forms on Earth. Nature, after all, works with only a few physiological templates. Things in watery environments tend to look like things built to move easily through those environments. Nature—despite our woefully limited view of it—is universal. Literally. Earth—as we recognize it—is little more than a tiny portion of a must larger, endlessly fascinating universe, governed by a very specific set of rules. These rules—far from arbitrary laws devised by some infantile intelligence with real personality issues—are (to put it simply) little more than the shape of things, and I thought of this as I stood near the edge of a squishy, slimy body of water existing in that odd half-way point between puddle and pond. I’d discovered water fleas in that pond-sized puddle. I was happy. There are more than 800 species of water flea on Earth and most of these creatures live in shallow bodies of water. According to numerous scientific estimates, there are quite possibly thousands of un-described, undiscovered species; like their isopod cousins (both land dwelling and aquatic) they are immensely successful organisms. And to top it off, they’re oddly cute and routinely ignored. I rediscovered the joys of water fleas on a particularly humid and boring day two weeks ago. I discovered them in a local body of water: like swarms of spastic semicolons, twitching their way from one side of an oversized pond to the other. They (like their woodlouse cousins) are the only truly interesting things in the area of Chicago in which I live. They’re not so big on conversation, but when captured and given a nice home in a mason jar, they’re far more entertaining and informative than television. I’ve spent hours watching them, and discovering all sorts of little trivia facts about them. Water fleas (similar in many ways to those “sea monkeys” once advertised on the back covers of US-American comic books) are rather hearty crustaceans. They are omnivorous and reproduce through asexual budding, though in a pinch they’ll reproduce sexually and thus produce eggs with the ability to hibernate through drought or freezing conditions. As adults, most water fleas look like…well…hyperactive punctuation marks (or lima beans with antennae.) As infants, they tend to resemble the difficult-to-photograph dots and blurs you see in this accompanying photo. I’d spent nearly two hours trying to get a decent shot of these critters, and I’m rather pleased with the “through the microscope” vibe this particular shot possesses. I can’t say that it’s an artsy shot, but it is a picture of very interesting, terrestrial aliens. Each water flea pictured here is approximately the size of a single grain of salt, and about as fast as the USS Enterprise at high warp. They’re attracted to light, however (something I discovered quite by accident) and so I got these little ones to swim to the side of their containment jar, getting as close as possible to the LED I’d placed right up against the glass. If you look carefully, you can see many of their internal (and external) features, including the single “Cyclops” eye they possess. The larger blur near the bottom of the photo is an adult in the “lima bean” shape common to the species. I particularly like their feathery swimming limbs; they also possess grasping appendages for clasping prey. Content to devour bacterial slime and algae, water fleas will express predatory behavior, and they seem to like newly hatched mosquito larvae. This makes them particularly welcome in this oddly wet spring Chicago is currently having. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great weekend.