Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff works a brain stuff.
Speaker 1: It's Christian Seger. Have you ever wondered what sea monkeys are, Well, look,
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you they're not monkeys. It turns
Speaker 1: out they're actually brine shrimp, which are these pretty cool
Speaker 1: little creatures in and of themselves. And Brian shrimp are
Speaker 1: found in salt lakes. These are little lakes that are
Speaker 1: so high in salt content that you usually only find
Speaker 1: these brine shrimp and the algae they feed on living
Speaker 1: in there. Nothing else can survive, which makes the brine
Speaker 1: shrimp and their algae friends extreme A files cool name, right.
Speaker 1: The other cool thing about Brian shrimp is that they
Speaker 1: can survive up to twenty five years encapsulated in what
Speaker 1: are known as cysts. These are these kind of protective
Speaker 1: layers that form around their eggs, and a lot of
Speaker 1: Brian shrimp just kind of sit there in suspended animation,
Speaker 1: and the cysts can actually dry out and survive just
Speaker 1: sitting there on the vast drive planes of the salt
Speaker 1: lake in Utah. Now, when you get sea monkeys, that
Speaker 1: is what comes in the packet. Add some salt water
Speaker 1: and the egg hatches and within about eight to ten days,
Speaker 1: you have a fully grown, half inch Brian shrimp a
Speaker 1: k a. A sea monkey. So now you know. Sea
Speaker 1: monkeys are not monkeys, but they are Brian shrimp and
Speaker 1: Brian shrimp. They're pretty cool. Check out the brain stuff
Speaker 1: channel on YouTube, and for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com