# Help needed in ID-ing shrimp



## Laconic (Feb 11, 2005)

Anyone can ID this shrimp? It's a long-arm species. Sneaked in with my Yamatos.
Quite pretty but I need to know to what size it would grow to. Sorry that the picture is so blurry.


----------



## Veneer (Jun 12, 2005)

Laconic said:


> Anyone can ID this shrimp? It's a long-arm species. Sneaked in with my Yamatos.
> Quite pretty but I need to know to what size it would grow to. Sorry that the picture is so blurry.


It often proves difficult to identify _Macrobrachium_ from images, but I suspect your shrimp _may_ belong to the same species complex as the yellow-banded and bicolor shrimp seasonally available through www.franksaquarium.com. At any rate, it will eventually attempt to consume its tankmates.

Can you take a shot of its chelae (claws)? How does it compare to the shrimp depicted below?

Dominant male yellow-claw ("_M. duarii_"):










Female yellow-claw ("_. duarii_"):


----------



## Laconic (Feb 11, 2005)

Sorry but I can't provide a picture with its front claws. but its doesn't match the ones in your pics. Do you know any sites which contains detailed info on Macrobrachium? Will appreciate it very much. Thanks.


----------



## Veneer (Jun 12, 2005)

There is typically little in the way of English-language material available for specific _Macrobrachium_ sp. (except _M. rosenbergii_, which is intensively cultured as a food organism), but it would be worth your while to look through the Großarmgarnelen ("large-arm shrimp") section of www.wirbellose.de/arten.html, or to ask around at www.shrimpnow.com or www.petshrimp.com.

Some general background information:

The 200 (mostly freshwater) species of the genus _Macrobrachium_ are ubiquitous throughout a tropical to sub-tropical belt encompassing Central and South America, the Caribbean, much of Africa proper, Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina, segments of Australia, and Austronesia. However, they are also to be found in more temperate climes, as southern Japan, Italy and the Balkans, South Africa, and North America (from about the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois).

These range from natant "ghost shrimp"-analogues to robust benthic predators capable of attaining total lengths exceeding two feet.

Two primary reproduction modes are in evidence amongst _Macrobrachium_ spp.: low-order and high-order. The former refers to a procedure by which a great many planktonic young are released amongst or otherwise drift downstream to saline waters, whereupon they eventually assume a benthic lifestyle and migrate back to freshwater. The latter, on the other hand, denotes the production of comparatively fewer eggs from which "miniature adults" ensue.


----------



## Veneer (Jun 12, 2005)

A question - are your specimen's claws equal in size?


----------



## Laconic (Feb 11, 2005)

nope. One arm is noticably thicker than the other. One thing I read about Macrobrachium is that there are often dominant males that differ visually. does it mean they stay in a 'herd' and not individually?


----------

