As of today, in season now. Earth Exhibit tracks the live conditions and flags it the moment it is on.
It is one of the strangest disappearing acts in nature.
Across deserts and on bare rock outcrops, shallow basins sit empty and cracked for months or years.
Then a heavy rain fills them, and within hours the water teems with life that seemed to come from nowhere — triops ('dinosaur shrimp,' little changed in 300 million years), fairy shrimp swimming upside-down, and clam shrimp.
Their eggs had been lying dormant in the dry dust, some viable for decades, withstanding baking heat and hard freezes.
When water finally returns and looks likely to last a few days, the eggs spring to life; the animals race from hatchling to breeding adult in under a week, lay the next generation of drought-proof eggs, and die as the pool evaporates back to dust.
You cannot schedule it — it follows the rain — but when a desert pool or a granite rock-pool fills, an entire ecosystem briefly appears and is gone again.
Where to see it
A taste of where to see it. The full map, exact coordinates and the best timing for each spot live in the app.
| Viewing spots |
|---|
| Wupatki National Monument Monsoon Pools |
| Jepson Prairie Vernal Pools |
| + 1 more spot, with exact coordinates and timing, in the app → |
This is the short version
This page shows a taste. The app has the full list of where to see this, the exact timing, and live conditions for 1,000+ natural phenomena worldwide, so you know the moment one is genuinely worth the trip.