What are these???

those are triops, a living dinosaur living unchanged for the last 300 million years.  they usually live in seasonal pools or sloughs that dry up every year (their eggs need to dry out for a period of time before they'll hatch)

I suspect the flooding has washed them from their native sloughs.  I wouldn't worry too much, they are harmless and made a good easy to catch prey item for all fish species.  they typically can only survive in temporary water bodies with no predators, aka fish.

Its strange looking at a 250 million year old fossilized triops from the carboniferous period and then finding a live one in your back yard.

they can't hurt nothing in the river, they scavenge the bottom and will eat just about anything organic, dead fish, small worms, dead vegetation, etc.  they're short lived (maybe a few months max) and their eggs must dry out to reproduce.  I suspect fish will eat them all before they die of natural causes, due to the fact they have no natural defense and don't even hide since in their native environments they are the top predator.

That is fantastic.  I like things like this.

Great post. I had no idea they are found in ND - I've never seen them wild and I spent half my childhood in Bismarck staring into lakes/rivers/ditches/sloughs.

My daughter got a kick out of these about 15 years ago. I must admit I enjoyed our experiment too!

http://www.sillyasstoys.com/triassictriops.aspx?gclid=CLGXrdrJ-akCFQJrKgodJ0z2YA

They look like minature horseshoe crabs...same family I would assume.

guywhofishes Said:
Great post. I had no idea they are found in ND - I've never seen them wild and I spent half my childhood in Bismarck staring into lakes/rivers/ditches/sloughs.

My daughter got a kick out of these about 15 years ago. I must admit I enjoyed our experiment too!

http://www.sillyasstoys.com/triassictriops.aspx?gclid=CLGXrdrJ-akCFQJrKgodJ0z2YA

By the way, we jacked it up by using an aerated aquarium, fed them bottom-feeding fish food, etc. Ours grew huge and healthy, then slowly tipped over due to old age (couple/three months).

Very cool guyz,thanx for the insight and oics.