# my assassin snail killed my yellow shrimp!



## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

i have an adult yellow shrimp being killed by an assassin snail. the body has not turned the usual milky white, looks alive just... not moving dead. the assassin snail is attached to the side of the body much like it eating a snail. help please! are they hungry? because i've got plenty of random pond snails in there.
heres a pict
http://yfrog.com/511001052jx


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## JohnPaul (Aug 28, 2006)

Any shrimp that could get "caught" by an assassin snail was either already dead, or else so close to dead that it's essentially the same thing.

A healthy shrimp could never get caught by one of those snails.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

no i was a healthy adult looks normal but with an assassin snail attached to it... i know what dead yellow shrimp look like, this one wasn't dead or near dead. all that's left of that 2 dollar lunch are shells >.>


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## James0816 (Oct 9, 2008)

In all seriousness though...really...

The only way the assassin will get a shrimp is as mentioned above. Sry.

Just because a shrimp "looks" healthy doesn't necessarily mean it is.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

I've seen them take down adult and young adult shrimp.

I will never have assassins in my shrimp tanks.


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## JohnPaul (Aug 28, 2006)

Gordonrichards said:


> I've seen them take down adult and young adult shrimp.
> 
> I will never have assassins in my shrimp tanks.


How did the snail prevent the shrimp from instantly springing away? The snail has no hooks or anything on its snout, any shrimp that was not already half dead would flip away in a fraction of a second. I simply don't buy it. In my tanks if a tiny, harmless 2 mm long ostracod accidently bumps into one of my shrimp, it springs away in a flurry of activity. I had a shrimp tank (Blue Pearls) that had both adult dwarf crayfish in it, the crays with their claws outstretched would chase the shrimp and try to get them but the shrimp were always way too fast for them. And adult crays are way, way faster than assassin snails.

I've seen alleged videos on YouTube of assassins killing shrimp--if you look closely, you'll notice in NONE of them do you ever see the snail actually attacking the shrimp. All you see if a video of a snail munching on an (already unmoving) shrimp in its grasp.

If an assassin snail can take down a healthy adult shrimp, then that should be as simple as possible to capture on video. Put an assassin & a shrimp or two in a small, clear cup of tankwater and start filming. It shouldn't take long at all to capture, right?


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

i actually kind of agree with john paul now, it is logical. i was just very confused as to why the shrimp didn't turn cloudy white like they usually do... it looked perfectly fine. dwarf shrimp can jump from the far left of a 20 l to the far right in less than a second, so definently even for fast snails like assassins they would have a hard time catching a shrimp.


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