Are sea monkeys safe
Sea-Monkeys are in no way harmful to humans or the environment. If they somehow find their way into natural waterways or sewer lines, they simply will not be able to survive outside of the formula.
Although the Sea Monkey phenomenon owes much to marketing voodoo, the science behind the hype is truly amazing. In real life, Sea Monkeys are known less fancifully as brine shrimp. Tiny members of the crustacea family that includes crab, and lobster, brine shrimp live in lakes with high salt content, such as Utah's Great Salt Lake.
What makes the brine shrimp an ideal candidate for pop-culture stardom as a Sea Monkey is its peculiar origin. Brine shrimp begin life as embryos in a suspended state of development, surrounded by a protective shell, or cyst. If kept dry, these cysts will remain viable for many years. Placed in salt water, the cysts rehydrate and the shrimp resume development. Larvae emerge and within eight days grow to a mature length of about one-half inch. Although tiny, they have a distinct head, limbs, and a tail. With a little imagination, it's not too difficult to look at brine shrimp and see fabulous Sea Monkeys. With proper care, brine shrimp can live up to three months and may even breed and produce new generations.
In 1957, Harold von Braunhut stared into a vat of brine shrimp and saw ... Sea-Monkeys. Brine shrimp, as some people know, are not really shrimp, but tiny crustaceous plankton used for live food on fish farms and in aquariums.
Sea-Monkeys, as any baby boomer who picked up a comic book in the '60s knows, are "amazing miracle" "instant pets," a magic powder in a packet that lets you "create life" just by adding water. Brine shrimp are a quirk of nature that can survive for years in a state of suspended animation. But it took a quirk of marketing -- and Harold von Braunhut -- to turn them into a pop cultural icon. Now Sea-Monkeys, and the people who love them, have invaded cyberspace.Soon von Braunhut shifted the emphasis from "Instant Life" to "Sea-Monkeys" (in interviews he says he got the name from the monkey-like tails on the tiny creatures). As Aqua-Boy explains, "if the instant hatching brine pets didn't live for long, the friendly Sea-Monkey family on the product's packaging would last forever in the memories of baby boomers." By the late 1960s, Sea-Monkeys had become so popular that toy stores began carrying them, so kids could buy them without the dreaded "4 to 6 week" postal delay.
