Is this a Pistol shrimp?

Does the claw shape make this a pistol shrimp.

Not necessarily. Pistol shrimp belong to the family Alpheidae. There are species in other families which also have enlarged claws. There's not enough detail for me to be sure what it is although Art - an alpheid specialist -will know if he comes along.

Alpheid eyes are distinctive so if the eyes on your high-res file are in focus you should be able to tell if it's a pistol or not. They should be partially or completely covered by the forward edge of the carapace on either side of the rostrum. Take a look at the alpheids on this page to see what I mean: http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv/shri-g03.htm Eyes of other shrimp are completely free & the eyestalks are usually evident.

I have to admit that I did not know there was even a shrimp there when I took the photo. Otherwise I would have taken a seperate photo of just the shrimp! This is the best I could do but the DOF is not very good, sorry...

My favorite lurker, Sammy DeGrave, sent me the id:

"Hiya wormlady,

Its Levicaris mamillata, family Gnathophyllidae, not quite an alpheid

The things I could promise to somebody who could get me some specimens......"

Sammy has a very attractive wife he might be willing to trade for a couple of these. She comes with her own horse.

There's another picture of it at http://www.cosmos.ne.jp/~breach/Fish%20col...l/shrimp25.html This shrimp is a commensal on the red pencil (or red slate) urchin Heterocentrotus mammillatus. All the records I saw were frm Japan or Hawaii. Where exactly did you find it?

He's in Okinawa I think.

Cheers

James

I took the photo in Okinawa (Japan), the photo in the link is from Maeda which is 20 mins north of where I took the photos I posted. My wife told me that she saw a number of them that night on the red pencil urchins. We should be going back out at night soon and I will try to get some better photos if someone would like them.

Thanks Leslie! (and Sammy too)

I sure would. There aren't many good images of this little guy. It must be really difficult to get a decent shot given its small size and the fact it's usually at a steep angle on a spine facing the camera.