I have to relate a rather humorous event to you that occurred to me earlier this afternoon. In an unlikely situation where Mr. Hubbard was not observing the abnormal creatures known as Triops, I was myself watching their maddening behavior. These small shrimp like animals appear to go through constant spasms. One second they will be on one end of the tank and the other they will be digging into the soil to lay their eggs. In between they are mostly occupied with eating and eating is something they do without preference or taste. Quite literally anything placed within the confines of the tank will be tried. Combine this with the fact that their eyes are on top of their heads and their mouths are on the opposite side and you can imagine that they can get quite a surprise every now and then. One of the larger Triops managed to bite down on a small stone and being unable to see and unable to taste the silly thing assumed it was just a harder form of plant and continued to chew. After about a minute it finally realized that it had made a culinary faux pas and started to spasm even more than we had previously observed. Perhaps it was ready to shed its skin? The small piece of stone had managed to get stuck and no maneuver of the animal would dislodge it. Besides the unfortunate design of their eye vs. mouth location they have the misfortune that their dozens of legs can not reach their mouths. You can imagine that by now the creature was not in a good mood. In an inspired moment of a Hubbard impersonation I decided that I could use one of the old man's long tweezers to remove the crustacean from the tank, put it on its back and remove the pebble. Apparently the little animal had figured this best laid plan out and became so frightened with the idea that it spit out the pebble and hid on the far side of the tank.