Bright green snapping shrimp in Didemnum molle tunicate
Started by echeng ·
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Bright green snapping shrimp in Didemnum molle tunicate
10 posts
I can't find this in any of my ID books. Anyone know what it is?
This bright green snapping shrimp lives inside a large Didemnum molle tunicate. We did a night dive at this particular site in Alor, and many of the Didemnum molle tunicates contained critters living inside of them (I saw 2 different shrimps and an amphipod). All of the commensal critters in this tunicate fled from lights, and getting this picture took over half an hour of careful planning and execution. Photo by Eric Cheng, taken with Canon 7D, 100mm macro lens, Nauticam underwater housing, Light & Motion Sola 600 focus light, 2 x Ikelite DS-125 strobes.
Hi Eric -- I hadn't even seen your post when I got an email from Sammy De Grove, the lord high shrimp expert at Oxford, who lurks here on occasion. Your shrimp is Periclimenaeus storchi (not a true snapping shrimp, wrong family), he says it's an outstanding image ( I totally agree), and he wonders if I could get a high-res image (copyright included is fine) from you that he can use in lectures. :-D
Fantastic! Please ask Sammy to contact me via email.
... oh, or I could just send it to you (which I will do now).
Here are some more pictures of the tunicate dwellers, including more individuals, some sort of flatworm, and amphipods found on and inside.
Excellent shrimp shot Eric.
I think the flatworm is a Cycloporus sp. and it's host ascidian is Didemnum molle. The amphipod looks like Cypoidea sp.
Many thanks on behalf of Sammy. He will be quite pleased.
And those other inhabitants are really cool! I suspect the small shrimp in the 3rd pic is a juvenile Periclimenaeus.
Thanks, Brian and Lesley! It was quite difficult to shoot these particular shrimps—they fled from both red and white light, so I had to approach in darkness (prefocused to the ballpark), light up the thing with bright (red) light, and hope that the camera AF would lock on quickly!
Hi Eric,
i saw your snapping shrimp in your Komodo video and was very impressed! and such a great video too by the way, it looked like an incredible trip, i wish i could have been there with you all.
I just saw my first 2 of these shrimps today in Lembeh, they were in 2 Tunicates next to each other. It looks a little bit different to your one, but i guess they could be the same species.
