I remember wanting these so badly, but never getting them. I had to go look up information since you posted. They were actually created in a lab! I would have shared a link to the article, but it was so irritating to scroll through with all the ads and pop-ups that I decided to just copy/paste the information.
Sea-monkeys is the brand name given to a species called Artemia NYOS (named after the New York Oceanic Society, at whose lab they were made). They were bred from different brine shrimp species, then marketed as ‘instant’ pets. They don’t exist in nature. What made them ‘instant’ is the fact that this particular kind of crustacean reached a state of cryptobiosis (almost like cryosleep in sci-fi movies, where a body shuts down for a period of time) when frozen, dried completely, or deprived of oxygen. They then spring back to life again when conditions go back to normal, breathing through their feet and drifting towards lights (yeah, normal).
This on/off life function meant they could be sold while in their cryptobiotic state and simply added to saltwater before ‘magically’ coming to life and swimming around in a tank. Harold von Braunhut had developed the sea-monkey brand in 1957, inspired by the popularity of ant farms, and he advertised them for sale in comic books. The creatures have a head, thorax, and abdomen and their entire body is covered with a thin, flexible exoskeleton of chitin to which muscles are attached internally and shed periodically.
Originally the alien-like pets were called Instant Life and sold for $0.49, but von Braunhut changed the name to Sea-Monkeys in 1962. Some customers felt misled by the cute, humanoid illustrations of the sea-monkeys in the comics, as well as the fact they do not live for very long, contrary to what was stated in the ads. The life expectancy of a sea-monkey is two years. But they reproduce a lot so as long as you care for them properly and remove the dead ones from the tank you ought to have a supply of them forever.
Inside the packet that came with the sea-monkeys themselves was the nutrients and food they require to feed and survive, and these were called ‘magic crystals’. They live on foods like dry yeast, wheat flour, soybean powder or egg yolk.
Obviously, I've never had them nor have my kids.
