the colour of the surrounding rock. Daily fluctuations between 10 °C and 40 °C are common. Small mountain rock pools usually do not stay full for long; in semi-arid areas there may be several cycles of filling and drying out during a single rainy season, depending on local weather. Any organisms attempting to complete their life cycle in such pools do so without any latitude; if they are late they die without issue. Branchipodopsis species excel in this respect and usually mature within a week or so after the formation of the pool. A typical clutch of dormant eggs generally numbers less than 100, but a mature female produces a new clutch nearly every day. Reproduction Especially in arid regions like South-Eastern Botswana, rainfall may be so erratic that sometimes there is not enough time for growth and reproduction; about a third of the inundations in some regions end in the pools drying too soon, causing the entire hatched population to die. Species subject to such circumstances depend on the strategy of producing a large bank of dormant eggs in the detritus of the pool bed, most of those hatching only after an unpredictable number of cycles of inundation, some of them only after many years. This partial hatching (or germination) is a common strategy in both animals and plants dependent subject to ruderal conditions. In the case of fairy shrimps such as Branchipodopsis and of other organisms dependent on, in fact specialised for, such fugitive conditions, it entails inability to survive in superficially more attractive, permanent conditions, such as perennial water; the eggs require periodic desiccation for their hatching stimulus and the adults cannot compete effectively with organisms that can exploit more nutrient-rich water. Dispersal of eggs over short distances may happen under many circumstances, for example by overflow from pools. However, long-range dispersal is comparatively rare and usually happens only in shallow pools without much vegetation. When dispersal takes place over longer distances, the vectors commonly would be favourable wind or the feet of birds, both of which are episodic and unreliable vehicles. Such constraints on dispersal provide a plausible reason for the high proportion of endemic species throughout the region; in the Drakensberg alone there are four. It also could explain the morphological variability of some widespread species, for example Branchipodopsis wolfi in Botswana. Species There are currently 22 species assigned to the genus. Branchipodopsis abiadi Branchipodopsis