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Kaleb Chekovsky, 8, looks at the fairy shrimp that Lilly Bergeron, 10, caught during a Carrie Ricker School field trip to a vernal pool at Smithfield Plantation in Litchfield on Thursday. Ninety third-graders searched along the banks of a “significant” vernal pool during the annual trip to the hundred-acre, permanently protected area. Students found tadpoles, caddis flies, mosquito larvae, water boatman beetles, spotted salamander eggs and fairy shrimp, an important find, said Tamara Whitmore. The educational director for the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed said the tiny crustaceans are rare and are found only in vernal pools.
Gordon Moore, a forester with the Maine Forest Service, holds spotted salamander eggs for students to see. Moore said the eggs are one indicator to determine if an area is indeed a vernal pool. Salamanders lay their eggs in vernal pools since the pools have no predatory fish to eat them.
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