There are desert plants which survive the dry season in the form of inactive seeds. There are also desert insects which survive as inactive larvae or pupae. In addition, difficult as it is to believe, there are desert fish
which can survive through years of drought in the form of inactive eggs. These are shrimps that live in the
Mojave Desert, an intensely dry region in the southwest of the United States where shade temperature of over
50 0 C are often recorded. The eggs are in the size and have the appearance of grains of sand. When sufficient spring rain falls to form a lake, once every two or five years, these eggs hatch. Then the water soon swarms with millions of tiny
shrimps about a millimeter long which feed on microscope plant and animal organisms which grow in the
temporary desert lake. Within a week, the shrimps grow from their original 1 millimeter to a length of about 1 1/2 centimeters. Through the time that the shrimps are rapidly maturing, the water in the lake equally rapidly evaporates. Therefore, it is a race against time. By twelfth day, when they are about 3 centimaters long, hundreds of tiny
eggs form on the underbodies of the females. Usually, bu this time, all that ramains of the final hours of their
brief lives, the females lay their eggs in the mud. Then, having ensured that their species will survive, the
shrimps die as the last of the water evaporates. If sufficient rain falls the following year to form another lake, the eggs hatch, and once again the cycle growth, adulthood, egg-laying, and death is rapidly passed through. If there is insufficient rain to form a lake,
the eggs like dormant for years, or even longer if necessary. Ocasionally, perhaps twice in a hundred years,
sufficient rain falls to form a deep lake that last a month or more. In this case, the species passes through two
cycles of gowth, egg-laying and death. Thus the species multiplies considerably, which further ensures its
survival.