On July 2, an employee of the China Railway Construction Corporation found some weird red-tailed creatures in a pond next to the main road in Lianyungang City, eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

These tiny creatures, only a few millimeters long, belong to a type of crustaceans that had existed since the period of the dinosaurs. They are the anostraca, commonly known as the fairy shrimp, an incredible animal that can survive in hypersaline waters.

Presently, fairy shrimps could be found throughout the seven continents. These fierce little creatures have a distinctive trick to overcome extreme conditions. They can enter diapause, a state in which their metabolism is arrested, like eggs, or cysts.

In this way, they can live through drought, hypersalinity, frost, and many other extreme environmental changes.

(Cover: VCG. )

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