Hi! My name is Finn, and I’m a teen Calanus finmarchicus (proudly in my fifth copepodite stage of development!). I am honoured to open the Door 17!

To be honest, I should be napping right now, like all my trillions of friends, but I’m just too excited because soon, I’ll become an adult! We were talking about this yesterday with Callie and Drifty, trying to guess if we’ll be males or females. We don’t know, and that’s what makes it so thrilling.

On one side, being a male sounds cool. We’re only around for two weeks in early spring, and then—poof! Gone. I like to think we go off on epic adventures, though Drifty insists males are short-lived. I’m not buying it, though.

Being a female, though, means I’ll be spawning hundreds of eggs, like tens per day for weeks! Yikes! I can’t even imagine how I’ll keep track of all those little ones. And don’t even get me started on the stories I’ve heard about some females eating their own babies if food’s late. I really hope that’s not true when I become a mom.

Ah, food. That’s what everyone talks about. Well, right now, everyone’s quiet because we’re all in our long winter nap, in the dark deep sea, kinda creepy to be honest. Apparently, we need to diapause (fancy word for “hibernate”) because there’s nothing to eat in the winter. But when spring comes, it’s a race to the surface for food, phytoplankton! The problem is, not all of us wake up at the right time. When I was a little copepodite C1, Grandma Copepoda used to tell me that a long time ago, dinner was always on time. Now? Not so much. If you wake up early, you may be stuck waiting for dinner, and starve to death. I don’t know who’s in charge of dinner, but they’re definitely not early risers… And then there’s the nightmare of boat spills. Oil everywhere! It makes us so sleepy we miss dinner altogether. It’s disgusting.

At least it’s worse for our Arctic cousins, the Calanus glacialis. They like to have their first meal under the sea-ice, where small algae grow, but with no ice, they’re out of luck. I hear they’re really not happy about it. The big fat Calanus hyperboreus from the central Arctic always make fun of them, these guys are eating so much whenever they get a chance, that they have enough stored energy to skip dinner.

But you know what? I can’t wait to meet the C. glacialis guys. They’re so strange and funny! I was born in the Norwegian Sea, but some of us get the chance to go to the fjords for the summer, if we get chosen by the great current. It’s like a wave-surfing holiday. The C. glacialis live there, and they’re a bit weird. They don’t like the big ocean, they prefer coastal waters, and they’re picky about temperature too. When summer starts, they find it too hot, and they sink, going to bed early in colder deep waters. Boring! I’ve heard that humans used to think we were the same species—how gross! We would never mix. We’re from different tribes!

But lately, everything’s been heating up. Climate change is real, and we’re feeling it. So, I’ve come up with a secret plan. When the Arctic gets hot enough, I’m going to migrate there. And guess what? I’ll wait for the C. glacialis to disappear because they can’t handle the heat. Then, I’ll invade and take over. I know, it’s a bit sneaky, but hey, survival of the fittest, right?

We have to be careful, though. Humans are everywhere. They’ve got satellites now and can even spy on us from space because of our red pigments. Sometimes we throw big parties with our fellow Calanus, and they catch us in action. No privacy, I tell you!

And get this: humans are catching us with giant nets! That’s how they got Captain Cal last year. You probably heard of him, he was the legend. He knew how to dodge predators and avoid fishing nets. And when the microplastics began to drift into the currents, Captain Cal’s antennas were the first to twitch and he warned us so we would carefully pick the right phytoplankton, and not the nasty plastic particles. He was like a hero to all of us. Now, they’ve caught him, and Callie said they want to turn him into a red pill so people can eat him and be healthier. Can you believe that? As if we don’t have enough to deal with, there are fish, birds, whales, all sorts of invertebrates, and benthic creatures all trying to eat us. We’re basically the ocean’s snack food. It’s tough out here!

But hey, we Calanus are survivors. We’ve been around for millions of years, long before the humans even figured out how to swim. And you know what? Despite the boats, oil spills, and heatwaves, we keep going. So, while life may not always be easy for a tiny zooplankton like me, I’m determined to make the most of it, and hopefully have some adventures along the way! And when I grow up, I want to be like Captain Cal, not afraid of anything. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even make it to the Arctic and help build a new future for our tribe. Because if there’s one thing we Calanus know how to do, it’s adapt, at least that’s what Grandpa Calanoida used to say before he got swallowed by a baby cod. We’re tiny, but we’re mighty. And no matter how big the challenges get, we always rise to the surface, especially at dinner time.