My well-meaning mum bought me a sea-monkey kit when I was young. My first negative impression was that the feather-like shrimp, even when fully grown, looked nothing like the charming (perhaps slightly disturbing) sapien-esque characters on the box. My second disappointment was their small adult size: if you're a lucky sea-monkey owner, your pets may reach 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch at best. They simply weren't large enough to enjoy from more than a couple of feet away.
Triops are also shrimp, sometimes called "tadpole" shrimp. Not only do they double their size about every day for the first week (instant gratification), they grow up just as freaky as they appear on the package. They look like a miniature alien race that will eventually grow to enormous size in the dark depths of the oceans. In a time of false human prosperity and hope, they'll take over the Earth and shear off the heads of our greatest leaders with their razor-sharp mandibles, announcing their ascension in guttural, warbling chorus: "We're going to eat most of you for lunch while swimming upside-down; and if you survive, stick around - we only live for 40 days or so...."
