Marine Reef Shrimp ID Resources

🔹 Reef Creature Identification: Tropical Pacific, by Paul Humann and Ned DeLoach, from New World Books available online in print and eBook.

🔹 Banded coral shrimp/boxer shrimp:
https://reefbuilders.com/2015/04/15/photographic-identification-guide-stenopus-shrimp/

🔹 Vir commensal shrimp:
http://www.starfish.ch/c-invertebrates/commensal-shrimps.html#Vir

🔹 More shrimp:
http://www.starfish.ch/index.html

🔹 Vir cleaner shrimp:

  • V philippinensis vs V. smiti, courtesy of @franca2020 in this observation https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/57581431:

    They told me (in Romblon) that it is the newly described Vir smitti. I think mostly because of the dark red instead of purple. I will add some differences in colour to V. philippinensis from a paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Vir-smiti-spec.-nov.%2C-a-new-scleractinian-shrimp-Fransen-Holthuis/06851af41dd72b62b62fd92ecfc715f33b8b1eb5
    After reading these, I am not sure it is V. smiti because I can't see the two first pereiopods being completely transparent!
    from the paper:
    Differences in colouration between V. smiti and V. philippinensis:
    • Antennular flagella red-brown in V. smiti; basally purple-blue and distally red in V.
    philippinensis.
    • With yellow chromatophores between eyes and anterior appendages in V. smiti;
    without yellow chromatophores in V. philippinensis.
    • First two pereiopods completely transparent in V. smiti; with purple-blue longitudinal thin line in V. philippinensis.
    • Third to fifth pereiopods with red-brown thin longitudinal lines in V. smiti; with
    purple-blue lines in V. philippinensis.
    • Uropods transparent in V. smiti; lateral margin of exopod of uropods with purpleblue line in V. philippinensis.

  • Vir colemani has spots/narrow bands instead of lengthwise lines.

🍤 How I identify a specific goby shrimp that's not in the Humann & DeLoach book

Fine-striped Snapping Shrimp, Alpheus ochrostriatus
It's more clear when you can see the two white saddles farther down the shrimp's body. But the fine beige lines down a pale body (or vice versa) with yellowish legs is how I ID them.

Here is an example from a site with (I think) a good ID track record:
http://www.starfish.ch/Fotos/crustaceans-Gliederfuesser/shrimps-Garnelen/Alpheus-ochrostriatus9.jpg

It also seems to be used in the aquarium trade:
http://www.saltcorner.com/AquariumLibrary/browsespecies.php?CritterID=2602

If I'm wrong, I'll have to go back and correct a bunch of IDs.

There's a Red Sea shrimp that has the 2 white saddles but it's not in any way yellow in any pictures I've seen, has dark antennae & a fat dark crescent under its front leg, and has dark bands in addition to the saddles. It's the Djedda Snapping Shrimp, Alpheus djeddensis.

I explained it in this observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8494511

Eggshell-style shrimp (Hamopontonia sp.): From @aractwin: "H. fungicola is the one with two large white patches; H. corallicola has many smaller white spots"

Posted on August 14, 2019 02:47 AM by jbecky jbecky

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