SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ARTEMIA GRACILIS, THE 

 BRINE SHRIMP OF GREAT SALT LAKE. 1 



ALBERT C. JENSEN. 



Very little investigation has been made of the animal life of 

 Great Salt Lake. This is probably because in popular literature 

 we still read that no living thing can exist in the brine of the 

 lake, or because the few forms adapted to such life have failed 

 to interest scientists. So far as the author knows, no attempt 

 has been made to make a complete scientific classification of 

 the lake fauna or to do any extensive research work on it. The 

 brine shrimp, Artemia gracilis, one of the lake forms, is a small 

 crustacean found in great abundance. 



In referring to the literature on the subject, we find that Cap- 

 tain Bonneville wrote short descriptions of his explorations along 

 the shores of Great Salt Lake, making mention of small animals 

 in the water, probably the brine shrimp, as early as 1831-1833. 

 Fremont also states of rowing to an island in the lake where 

 he found what he called larvae of insects washed upon the shore 

 in great heaps or windrows three or four feet wide, and many 

 animals living in the water. Verrill described the brine shrimp 

 as Artemia gracilis in 1869. Seven years later Dr. Siebold, of 

 Munich, obtained through Dr. Hagen, of Cambridge, Mass., a 

 quantity of dried mud from Great Salt Lake which contained 

 fertile eggs of Artemia. These eggs were hatched in artificially 

 prepared brine and shrimps reared therefrom. Siebold succeeded 

 in propagating Artemia for several generations and was quite 

 convinced that this crustacean reproduces parthenogenetically 

 as well as sexually. Packard ascribes the abundance of this 

 phyllopod in Great Salt Lake to the absence of enemies. Further, 

 after an examination of specimens he concluded that Verrill's 

 later described species are merely different stages of the same 

 species and should be included under the first described form, 

 Artemia gracilis. As late as 1889 David Starr Jordan stated 



1 Contribution from the Zoological Laboratory of the University of LTtah. 



IS 



