This year our local vernal pools have dried down earlier than normal, plants and animals that inhabit these pools are typically adapted to carry out a life cycle that accounts for a wet and a dry period. In one pool there were small blue/green patches where the last of the water stood before it dried up. What are all tiny blue/green bodies amid the deceased Water boatmen and full grown Clam-shrimp? Are they immature Clam-shrimp? Perhaps a generation of Clam-shrimp that didn’t make it to maturity before dry-up? Were they unable to deposit eggs for next year’s rains?…etc.
