The Dark Origins Of 'Sea-Monkeys' Are Leaving Parents Seriously Uneasy

What do you do when your kid wants a pet, but you know full well who'd be on doody duty if you caved and adopted a dog? You turn to sea monkeys, of course! Aquatic specks that zip and zoom around a portable tank — they're the perfect pals for a curious kid. But before you fork over any cash to become the proud grandparent to a bunch of sea monkeys, you might want to learn what exactly they are as well as the dark truth about the man who first introduced them to the masses.

What are Sea-Monkeys, anyway?

Their name has spread far and wide, but few people really know what sea monkeys actually are. Well for starters, they don't live in the sea, and they're a far cry from your typical banana-loving monkey. The bizarre-looking creatures are only about one inch long, and they start out in this world being freeze-dried. So how did they come to be known by two things that seem totally unrelated to them? The truth is, they weren't given the name until some time after their creation.

Meet Harold von Braunhut

It all started back in 1957 with a man named Harold von Braunhut. Back then, he was notorious for selling the most ridiculous products, such as X-ray glasses and invisible goldfish. But the real turning point for von Braunhut came when he saw the boom in the popularity of ant farms in 1956. He didn't need x-ray specs to spot a money-making scheme, and he wanted his own slice of success.

The birth of an idea

With dollar signs no doubt in his eyes, von Braunhut was on the hunt for a simple pet of his own with which to make his millions. Cue — the brine shrimp. Although not yet known as Sea-Monkeys, it seemed that von Braunhut had come across a bizarre little creature that could be just the thing he needed for his big break. The minuscule brine shrimp were bred from a type of shrimp in the 1950s, which explains their shape, but not where the primate nickname came from. 

Tampering with science

The scientists who artificially created these shrimp-like animals named them Artemia NYOS, a calling card based on the brine shrimp's official moniker, artemia salina. That name wasn't going to sell these creatures to anyone, though. So instead, von Braunhut honed in on one specific trait of these odd little critters to come up with a catchy new name.