About this ugly creature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyalella_azteca
Yep. Ugly. And...crawly. I spent my first day counting these little guys for an experiment and it started out shaky. I normally use a light box to count most of the small animals in our possession because they are easier to see. It turns out, Hyalella do not like light boxes. They were practically leaping out of the water container to get away from the bright lights. The behavior was so abnormal that we had to re-test the pH, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen of the water. When everything turned out normal, we turned off the light box and...poof...normal behavior. So, there's an aversion to light there.
Their jumpiness grossed me out. It reminded me of the scene in World War Z where the zombies made a 100 story stacked human staircase to climb into a city. Hyalella were using the same strategy to get out of the bowl. EW. Once the lights were turned off they finally calmed down, but I held a grudge. I like using those lights.
One part of the experiment requires us to take dry weights of several individuals to get an idea of how much they grow over the course of the study. Dry weights. As in, cooked in the oven. I trapped those little suckers in beads of water and popped them right in the oven. No regrets.
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