Artemia Salina

Artemia salina is a species of brine shrimp, an aquatic crustacean more closely related to Triops and cladocerans than to true shrimp, in the family Artemiidae and named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. It is native to saline lakes, ponds, and temporary waters of the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, Anatolia, and northern Africa, and is notably absent from the open sea. Reaching about 15 millimeters in length, it has three eyes and eleven pairs of legs, and carries hemoglobin, the same oxygen-carrying pigment found in vertebrates; males have distinctly enlarged, modified second antennae that serve as claspers during mating.