Fairies do Exist!

[Come] Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind…and dance upon the mountains like a flame! William Butler Yeats.

I stood shivering in its frigid water and looked below the surface, watching for movement. Traces of skim ice clung to the leafy detritus and alder twigs along the edge of the woodland pool, only recently filled with March rains and snowmelt. Then I saw one. Then another. Then six more: all fairy shrimp, the tell-tale sign of a vernal pool.

These delicate inch-long creatures seem to hover effortlessly in the cold water before gracefully swimming away. With their nimble and ethereal movements, it is no wonder they are likened to those mythical woodland fairies of folktales.

Fairy shrimp are denizens of vernal pools – those fishless bodies of water that dry up during the warm months of the year. They almost always swim upside down, traveling throughout the water in search of food. The beating movement of their tiny legs propels them through the water and aids in collecting bacteria, algae, and other microorganisms to eat.

Female fairy shrimp produce two types of eggs – summer eggs and resting eggs. The summer eggs hatch almost immediately, and those new fairy shrimp complete their life cycles before the vernal pool dries up. Resting eggs, which can survive cold winter temperatures and drought, hatch in late winter or early spring after the pool has filled again from the rain and winter snowmelt. Then for another year a new crop of graceful fairies will make their presence in the ephemeral waters dotting the landscape.

Vernal pools are one of the neatest ecosystems easily accessible to us in Central MA. They are important breeding areas for wood frogs, Spring peepers, spotted salamanders, and a whole bunch of really cool caddisflies. And, of course, fairy shrimp need the vernal pools as they cannot survive the predatory fish found in rivers, lakes and ponds.

I certified some vernal pools for the State (MA) in 2006. Every year in March and early April since then, before too much algal growth makes it difficult to observe fairy shrimp, I’ll head out to the pools to catch a glimpse of these critters. When I spot fairy shrimp, even after observing hundreds of them over the years, it is as magical as the first time I saw one.