Shrimp Id help please

This particular shrimp my guide found on a sponge head and thought it was shedded skin of some shrimp. Then the guide poked at it before I could stop him and it moved. So it was alive. But what is it? Best I could describe is a orange caramel dessert with that texture. The shrimp is pretty much the correct color and I downed the background to help with ID. Thanks in advance.

nice photo, good enough to get an ID, but why would your guide want to touch it when you are taking photographs of it?

It is a Paron shrimp - Gelastocaris paronae from the family HIPPOLYTIDAE.

they have an almost exact picture in the book from Crustacea from Debelius (2001).

Philippe

Well he saw that I was mesmerized with the shrimp for a while and not shooting. So he thought I was waiting for it to move somewhere. I was just looking for signs of life

Thanks for the id Philippe.

Actually by downing the background you've provided the best shot of a G. paronae I've ever seen. Normally it's almost impossible to distinguish them from the background. There's only one described species in the genus but some people have speculated that there are several morphologically similar host-specific species that can be told apart by what they live on.

Yeah, when I first spotted it, I cleared my mask twice, turned on my lights and used a magnifying glass. This little shrimp is very well disguised in that sponge.

Its very cool.

Hellooou

a very cool shot !

as far as I know Gelastocaris paronae is a sponge-associate, not coral-associate ..

but your photo is even more interesting: I think that the odd spots on the abdominal somites 1-3 may be false ostia (or small oscula) for even better camouflage

could you crop/zoom more on the shrimp ?

cheers

Art

Hellooou

 

a very cool shot !

 

as far as I know Gelastocaris paronae is a sponge-associate, not coral-associate ..

 

but your photo is even more interesting: I think that the odd spots on the abdominal somites 1-3 may be false ostia (or small oscula) for even better camouflage

 

could you crop/zoom more on the shrimp ?

 

cheers

 

Art

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The background in the above photo is definitely not coral. It is sponge.