- Jan 7, 2002
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Photo: Female and Male Branchinecta Species Nova (Photo courtesy of Idaho National Guard).
A dry piece of land in the Idaho desert is a good place for military training exercises ? and, it turns out, a newly-discovered species of shrimp. It's the first new animal species to appear in the United States in decades. Correspondent Elizabeth Wynne Johnson went to check it out.
This is a story about a shrimp. But if you're picturing shrimp like you might find hooked over the rim of a glass with some nice cocktail sauce ? don't. At three inches in length, with a translucent white body and a head like a praying mantis, Branchinecta Species Nova is unlike anything science has ever seen before. Dana Quinney is a military biologist with the Idaho National Guard.
QUINNEY/ACT It is kind of like a watery feather with an attitude. It's got a lot of little legs that it beats around, and it is constantly searching for things to bite and ingest.
It goes after smaller pond creatures with abandon, snagging its victims with sharp claws and sticking them to the velcro-like surface of its body, hardly breaking stride in the process. For most biologists,stumbling onto a new animal species is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Gary Burton is with U-S Fish and Wildlife.
http://www.nwpr.org/HomepageArticles/Article.aspx?n=845
A dry piece of land in the Idaho desert is a good place for military training exercises ? and, it turns out, a newly-discovered species of shrimp. It's the first new animal species to appear in the United States in decades. Correspondent Elizabeth Wynne Johnson went to check it out.
This is a story about a shrimp. But if you're picturing shrimp like you might find hooked over the rim of a glass with some nice cocktail sauce ? don't. At three inches in length, with a translucent white body and a head like a praying mantis, Branchinecta Species Nova is unlike anything science has ever seen before. Dana Quinney is a military biologist with the Idaho National Guard.
QUINNEY/ACT It is kind of like a watery feather with an attitude. It's got a lot of little legs that it beats around, and it is constantly searching for things to bite and ingest.
It goes after smaller pond creatures with abandon, snagging its victims with sharp claws and sticking them to the velcro-like surface of its body, hardly breaking stride in the process. For most biologists,stumbling onto a new animal species is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Gary Burton is with U-S Fish and Wildlife.
http://www.nwpr.org/HomepageArticles/Article.aspx?n=845
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