Photo: JULIE JAMMOT / AFP / Getty Images
(Black Rock, Nevada) - As if the 2023 Burning Man Festival wasn’t apocalyptic enough, torrential rains awoke a dormant Biblical plague of three-eyed “Fairy shrimp, commonly referred to as sea monkeys.”
According to scientists, "Triops and fairy shrimp are extremophiles capable of surviving harsh conditions like drought for several years in suspended animation. They lie dormant in eggs embedded in sediment, only to be reawakened when floods create ideal conditions for them to emerge. "
The unexpected rain turned the normally arid Black Rock Desert setting into a muddy hellscape as the crustaceans wriggled to the surface of the Nevada desert to join the party.
This caused hours long traffic jams as thousands of stranded Burning Man revelers scrambled to flee the annual bash.