In August of 2001 Mrs The Fyd (before she became Mrs actually) and I took a short vacation in Newport, Oregon. At the Oregon Aquarium gift shop I bought an Ecosphere, containing four brine shrimp. One died within months of the purchase, but the others have held out longer. Until now; one more has died, its sad carcass drifting without volition among the white rocks of the bottom of the glass prison.

Its head is already gone. I shall keep a close eye on the progress of its decomposition. I suspect that, as it once perhaps did with the remains of its pre-deceased sibling, the survivors have gotten their seafood buffet on. The instructions for the sphere noted that the shrimp survived on the bacteria and such of the natural cycle of the closed system. It can't stretch the imagination that something a little more solid might go down a treat once in awhile.