#palaemonidae

A pair of Coleman's shrimp (Pereclimenes colemani) in Batangas, Phillippines

I am a fancy gentleman, and I love some fancy shrimps...

Harlequin Shrimp (Hymenocera picta), family Palaemonidae, Lembeh, Indonesia

photograph by Christian Gloor

Harlequin Shrimp (Hymenocera picta), family Palaemonidae, found in tropical reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans

photograph by Steve Childs 

Harlequin Shrimp (Hymenocera picta), family Palaemonidae, Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia

Scissor River Prawn Macrobrachium latidactylus

A river prawn from the Philippines.

Giant River Prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii), family Palaemonidae, order Decapoda, Gujarat, India

A large freshwater prawn, can reach over 30 cm (1 ft) in length

The coloration of the male’s two longest claws is determined by dominance, a small, low ranking young male will have translucent claws, a “middle” male will have orange claws, and a large, older, highly ranked male will have blue claws

Larvae live in brackish water (a mix of salt and freshwater), but move to freshwater as juveniles

A common source of food

Native to South and Southeast Asia and northern Australia, has been introduced to the Americas, parts of Africa, China, Japan, and New Zealand by aquaculture

Glass shrimp (Periclimenes tosaensis) on an anemone in Indonesia

AKA Giant Jungle Prawn, Camaron or the Monkey river prawn. Wikipedia and the WoRMS database have it also described as Cancer teatae Curtiss, 1938, which seems a bit unlikely, since Cancer had stopped being the default genus for crustaceans 150 years earlier. Originally described as Palaemon lar by Fabricius, in 1798, but synonyms include Leander dionyx, Macrobrachium ornatus and a whole bunch of other Palaemon.

A very large omnivorous freshwater prawn, with a total length exceeding 18cm, found in rivers and creeks near sea level, from East Africa through to the Marquesas Islands. The larvae hatch and develop at sea then return to freshwater.

Introduced to some of the Hawaiian Islands for food, and spread by themselves to the others.