As Homo sapiens rushes towards extinction (in geological terms) taking with us many other species, it is good to know that some creatures that were here well before us will still be about when we are gone.
In a small puddle in a wood in Bedfordshire some crustaceans called ostracods were spotted last year “zipping about like rockets under water” as they completed their rapid transition from eggs to adults. Magically, ostracods disappear when puddles dry up only to re-emerge when conditions become favourable. The trick is that their eggs dry out and can survive for years as dust waiting for the right conditions to hatch.
When they do the juveniles grow rapidly through nine stages to become adults, and are ready to produce eggs again. This life cycle can take place in as little as 30 days in freshwater species or months in their marine cousins.
Ostracods first appear in the fossil records 450 million years ago, and many species survive in almost every watery habitat.
Exactly which freshwater species was spotted in Bedfordshire is yet to be determined because before the nearest expert could get there the puddle had dried up.
A guess is Darwinula stevensoni but this spring a watch is being kept in case it is a species new to science.
