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nDonyou know what “Sea Monkeys” are?
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nWell,nthey certainly aren’t monkeys!
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nSeanMonkeys are teeny-tiny brine shrimp that are sold through the mail.nSupposedly the brine shrimp tails are like monkey’s curling tails—butnif you buy some expecting the critters to look like those in the ad,nyou are going to be really disappointed! n
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nOnenthing that is fun about Sea Monkeys is that they seem to comeninstantly to life. Do you want to know the secret of how thatnhappens? If so, read the rest of this paragraph. If you want to ordernsome Sea Monkeys and try to figure it out for yourself, you will wantnto skip to the next paragraph… Apparently the Sea Monkey kitnincludes a packet that is labeled “Water Purifier.” That packetnincludes salt and some brine shrimp eggs. After 24 hours, the SeanMonkey owner is prompted to add a packet labeled “Instant LifenEggs”; this packet includes (as you might imagine) a lot more brinenshrimp eggs, plus more salt, plus yeast for food, and sometimes andye—and the brine shrimp that had already hatched from eggs overnthe previous day see to appear instantly. You see how the trick isndone? The eggs you just poured in don’t instantly come to life—butnyou’d poured eggs into the water the day before, when you thought itnwas just water purifier!
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nOncenSea Monkeys are safely hatched, owners can feed them the packetnlabeled “Growth Food,” which is yeast and algae. Many owners arendisappointed that their Sea Monkeys don’t live two years, as promisednin ads, but brine shrimp CAN live that long—they just usuallyndon’t. Some owners have had good batches of Sea Monkeys that livenabout three months.
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nFornsome strange reason, Sea Monkeys have a cult following—people whonlove these hard-to-spot, short-lived “pets” and who startnwebsites and declare today National Sea Monkey Day! Sometimes SeanMonkeys are mentioned on TV or in movies, and in 1992 there was evenna cartoon called The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys, whosencharacters were based on the humanlike pictures in the ads. I thinknthe coolest thing about Sea Monkeys may be that astronaut John Glennntook a package of them (not yet hatched) into space for nine days—andnlater they hatched and grew up to be completely normal.
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nIfnyou are interested in buying Sea Monkeys, you can purchase them atnDiscover This.
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nAlsonon this date:
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nMathematician Maria Agnesi’s birthday
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nAnniversary of the first large wagon train bound for Oregon
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