National Sea Monkey Day is observed each year on May 16. Most of us have memories of waiting for our mail order shipment of these magical creatures. The delivery usually contained the small “aquarium-like” hatching kit for them to live and grow in.
Sea Monkeys are a type of “Artemia” (brine shrimp). They earned their name because of their monkey-tail look.
Following the popularity of the ant farms, Harold von Braunhut invented the “Sea Monkeys” and hatching kits in 1957. He did most of his advertising through comic books. He once said, “I think I bought something like 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising a year. It worked beautifully.”
These little crustaceans have made their appearances on television shows including Spin City, Roseanne, Night Court, South Park, The Simpsons, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and Desperate Housewives.
Sea Monkeys went into space with astronaut John Glenn on October 29, 1998, aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. They returned to Earth after spending nine days in space and the eggs hatched eight weeks later, apparently unaffected by their travels.
