Small stuff in the water
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Well as i mentioned in the introduction a large amount of organisms have chosen to live in the fluid, called water. This is reasonable enough as there is a lot of it, and i seriously doubt there would be room for us all on terra firma.
The sizes of these organisms vary quite drastically. I hope to provide you with information about a lot of these organisms, but right now i'll start with something called copepods.
Copepods are small crustaceans who has decided to make life at troublesome as possible for scientists. They have evolved these trait for many years, even from before there were scientist, simply building up to the great clash.
The copepods best weapon against the scientist is to be different from other copepods in a way that the scientist can't tell. They have therefore developed 6 so-called nauplii stages and 6 so-called copepodite stages, where tiny differences will be the difference between each stage. In order to make it even more difficult, the copepods have agreed to stay small, actually so small that the scientists require microscopes (overdimensioned glasses) in order to tell them apart.
I am currently struggling to indetify these copepods in regards to species and stages, and should you ever, earthling or visitor decide to attempt the same, i feel compelled to warn you. This kind of activity can drive you to the edge of madness within a few weeks. Some days you may be perfectly able to tell the difference, only to find that you have forgotten everything the next morning.
It is an interesting field as these little critter are of a rather complex construction which involves 5 pair of legs, several exterior mouth parts, antenna's (i don't know if they communicate with other civilization through them). But beware.....
More will be added to this entry. Who knows, maybe even some serious scinece :-)
