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Artemia

Artemia is a genus of aquatic crustaceans also known as brine shrimp. Artemia, the only genus in the family Artemiidae, has changed little externally since the Triassic period. The first historical record of the existence of Artemia dates back to the first half of the 10th century AD from Urmia Lake, Iran, with an example called by an Iranian geographer an "aquatic dog",although the first unambiguous record is the report and drawings made by Schlösser in 1757 of animals from Lymington, England.Artemia populations are found worldwide in inland saltwater lakes, but not in oceans. Artemia are able to avoid cohabiting with most types of predators, such as fish, by their ability to live in waters of very high salinity (up to 25%).

The ability of the Artemia to produce dormant eggs, known as cysts, has led to extensive use of Artemia in aquaculture. The cysts may be stored indefinitely and hatched on demand to provide a convenient form of live feed for larval fish and crustaceans.[4] Nauplii of the brine shrimp Artemia constitute the most widely used food item, and over 2000 tonnes of dry Artemia cysts are marketed worldwide annually. In addition, the resilience of Artemia makes them ideal animals running biological toxicity assays and it has become a model organism used to test the toxicity of chemicals. Breeds of Artemia are sold as novelty gifts under the marketing name Sea-Monkeys or Aqua Dragons.