That’s right! You all heard it exactly right! On the very top of Stone Mountain above the beautiful Confederate carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, live shrimp can be found living in tiny pools but only durig certain times of the year!
The depressions on the very top of the mountain gather pools of water seasonally when the rain is plentiful which in turn provides a perfect ecosystem and essentials for life.
The specie of shrimp that lives on top of the mountain is not your ordinary “shrimp with coctail sauce” but instead is more related to water fleas and tadpole shrimp!
In this species of shrimp their eyes are close together and located on their forehead. They have two pairs of antennaes. The first pair is reduced and unsegmented while the second pair is long and forms two branches. These little guys also have lots of legs! Ranging from 10 to 32 legs!
These shrimp also have a great escape mechanism when it comes to escaping predators!
They have two valves of their shell that are held together by a strong closing muscle. When they feel threatened they will contract this muscle which in return closes these valves tightly. The shrimp will then lay motionless at the bottom of the pool as if it were dead.