The first historical record of the existence of Artemia dates back to the first half of the 10th century AD from Lake Urmia, Iran, with an example called by an Iranian geographer an "aquatic dog",[2] although the first unambiguous record is the report and drawings made by Schlösser in 1757 of animals from Lymington, England.

[3] Artemia populations are found worldwide, typically in inland saltwater lakes, but occasionally in oceans.

Artemia are able to avoid cohabiting with most types of predators, such as fish, by their ability to live in waters of very high salinity (up to 25%).

The cysts may be stored indefinitely and hatched on demand to provide a convenient form of live feed for larval fish and crustaceans.

[4] Nauplii of the brine shrimp Artemia constitute the most widely used food item, and over 2,000 metric tons (2,200 short tons) of dry Artemia cysts are marketed worldwide annually with most of the cysts being harvested from the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

The brine shrimp Artemia comprises a group of seven to nine species very likely to have diverged from an ancestral form living in the Mediterranean area about 5.5 million years ago,[6] around the time of the Messinian salinity crisis.

The entire body is covered with a thin, flexible exoskeleton of chitin to which muscles are attached internally and which is shed periodically.

[9] Autotomy, the voluntary shedding or dropping of parts of the body for defence, is also controlled locally along the nervous system.

[9] Brine shrimp can tolerate any levels of salinity from 25‰ to 250‰ (25–250 g/L),[10] with an optimal range of 60‰–100‰,[10] and occupy the ecological niche that can protect them from predators.

[citation needed] While in extreme conditions, such as low oxygen level or salinity above 150‰, female brine shrimp produce eggs with a chorion coating which has a brown colour.

These eggs, also known as cysts, are metabolically inactive and can remain in total stasis for two years while in dry oxygen-free conditions, even at temperatures below freezing.

Diploid Artemia parthenogenetica reproduce by automictic parthenogenesis with central fusion (see diagram) and low but nonzero recombination.

[13] Central fusion of two of the haploid products of meiosis (see diagram) tends to maintain heterozygosity in transmission of the genome from mother to offspring, and to minimise inbreeding depression.

Cultured brine shrimp can also be fed particulate foods including yeast, wheat flour, soybean powder or egg yolk.

From cysts, brine shrimp nauplii can readily be used to feed fish and crustacean larvae just after a one-day incubation.

For example, A. franciscana of the Americas has been widely introduced to places outside its native range and is often able to outcompete local species, such as A. salina in the Mediterranean region.