I had one experience at Froggy Pond that wasn’t bridged to head knowledge for many years. It happened one day as I was leaning over looking into the clear water and saw something move. It moved through the algae in the shallows with little jerks. It was difficult to make out what it was moving through the thicket of submerged green plants so of course I reached down and picked it up. I laid it in the palm of my hand and stared at it. I had never seen anything like it. It was elongated, but flattened on the sides, partly curled up, gray, and with antennae at one end. It had a soft flexible shell. And one could almost see through it. It gave a flip and either pinched, stung, or bit me in the palm of my hand. It didn't cause any real pain but I was so startled I dropped it back into the water. Then feeling a little fearful, not knowing whether it could give me a bad sting, I decided not to pick it up again. But after it was gone I retained a clear picture of it in my mind even though I never saw another one of these creatures in subsequent visits to Froggy Pond.
Sometime later I encountered shrimp, probably on the family dinner table, and figured this thing must have been a baby shrimp. After that I learned that shrimp live in salt water. I felt a certain elated excitement thinking that I knew about a shrimp that lived in fresh water. It was my secret. There probably wasn’t anyone interested in knowing my secret yet I felt possessed of some special knowledge. Still I didn’t know for sure what my little creature was called, and anything of interest that doesn’t have a name is still imbued with an element of mystery. This mystery hovered there in the background of my mind, submerged but never quite forgotten, for years.
In my adult life the mystery creature popped into my consciousness at rare moments. One day I determined I was going to find a name for it no matter what. By now I knew some biology and had some idea of how to look things up. After a bit of research I learned my mystery creature was a crustacean commonly called a scud by fishermen who use them for bait. And I learned I had been correct in thinking of it as a fresh water shrimp. In fact it was probably a shrimp in the genus Gammarus. I now know that scuds are an indicator of high water quality and will not live in water with any degree of pollution. The question that has remained in my mind is "How did the scud get there?" Scuds are described as occupants of flowing streams and Froggy Pond wasn't much more than a small puddle in the dry surrounding landscape. So there is still a bit of the unknown surrounding my first encounter with fresh water shrimp.
The point of this story is that memories of childhood discoveries can be very long lasting, especially when the discoveries are truly independent observations not infiltrated with well-intentioned adult inputs.
Keith Willits Photo on Flickr
Shrimp-like Gammarus Scuds
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