Dry Lake (Playa)

Dry Lake (Playa) is a large area of sand field. Generally there is no water, often wind gusts and dust devils blow sand into the air, and mirage blocks sight of all direction in hot afternoon, so the mountains is only way to find direction in the middle of lake. There are many dead grasses around the lake, but very few in the middle, and hard to find a creature, it's looks like "Dead Lake".

But, monsoon season visits dry lake, storms drop heavy rain, water flows into the lake from small streams around, and fills the lake with muddy water. About 24 hours after rain, there is very small creatures swimming in the water. They are fairy shrimps, clam shrimps, tadpole shrimps (triops), and water fleas. These creatures grow very fast and reproduce in 2 weeks. It's not all of creatures in dry lake, there is dragonfly larvals, tadpoles, diving beetles, and tons of mosquitos!

Dry lake's crustaceans (fairy, clam, tadpole shrimp and water flea) are very interesting creatures, their eggs can survive through very dry climate, even under freeze or extreme hot weather, and wait for months or years until exposed to good condition. They can easily blow away by strong wind with dusts, and travel to other places, and hatch out when water covers the ground like seed of plants. Water pools, playas last 2 weeks or more, it's up to the condition how they are formed, shrimps use this chance to hatch, grow, and reproduce, then die as the water dries up. If pool has water flowing in so that it lasts little longer than normal, shrimps just keep producing eggs, live even for a month.

We offer eggs of fairy shrimp and clam shrimp, and hope you enjoy some another world hiding in the muddy water of desert.