It's been a good day for getting pictures of friends! Shai-Hulud let me take one of him at his water bowl.
#CoSoPets

In case anybody was wondering what a brine shrimp swimming around with a plump eggsac looks like...

@CinnamonGirlE I will defend Ursula forever.

@Oma_Trisha Thank you! I know those are also in the area.

Anybody know frogs and toads? I think my friend here is a Woodhouse toad? I'm in an area where they are abundant. I'm just not sure if I'm correctly identifying.

<insert big sigh> Every time I think the shrimp colony has stabaliized, I get surprised by a bunch of deaths in one night. This year has been a bit too much for me. Focusing on the shrimp has been protecting me from complete burnout. C'mon, little shrimp! We can do this!

I spent time talking with a friend today about art. Giving each other practical encouragement (tips to be applied, rather than vague praise), trusting each other with some of our doubts and self-criticisms. I haven't had many friends I can do that with. Most people I count as friend don't have the same hobbies as me. It was a conversation I didn't know I needed.

I'm going to have to get someone in my life to understand there's a difference between "I'm not good at doing that" and "I'm not comfortable when I'm doing that". I'm getting real tired of having to live other people's daily lives for them. I'll work with them, but I'm not getting paid to work for them.

I complete my trips around the sun in September, and I started making sure I always take a selfie in September when I completed the 40th. My grandmother was 50 when I was born. She was always beautiful to me. I don't buy the idea that beauty has to look young. Sometimes, if I turn my head just the right way, I see a little of my grandmother in myself.

@vilamundi999 Honestly, I thought Otis would be king forever, but Chunk saw Otis and went, "Hold my salmon." Then ate it himself.

@ps9714 Yeah, that took me an extra few seconds to fully process! 😄 I appreciate the wordplay.

@nonayadambidnes Yeah, when your own staff is like, "Actually, we're kinda trying to NOT get the word out there"! 🤣

@NoahPaulLeGies The babies are so tiny! Easy to miss until you've suddenly got more shrimp.

@stueytheround Life is a highly complex science experiment for me. 😄 My elementary school teachers would be so proud.

They've also been moving little clumps of algae into the castle. That could be a coincidental thing - just drops in there and doesn't get flushed back out. But it means algae growth is picking up, which is healthy for them.

Apparently, their brains are just a little ring of cells that release amino acids and maybe have something to do with metabolism. The nervous system actually controls most things.

I don't know how they know to do this. Not even just instinct. But if a shrimp dies and eggs were already fertilized, they finish developing. I have seen babies coming up from the graveyard.

When a shrimp dies, they move the body behind the castle. There is nothing blocking them from continuing to move it. They just don't move it back out. But they still go back there to eat algae. They aren't avoiding the decomposing shrimp.

I spent too much of the day looking up info on brine shrimp brains. Mine have started a graveyard and are tending it. I can't find any evidence that their brains would even be capable of recognizing "get rotting flesh away from live creatures".

Somebody molted and the exoskeleton came off in almost one whole piece. Now it looks like there's a ghost shrimp haunting the tank.