Banded Tozeuma Shrimp

Tozeuma armatum is a shrimp species from the Hippolytidae family.

Description

An elongated shrimp, which blends in with the coral not only by its shape, but also by adopting the same colour bands as its particular coral colony host. It can be white, yellow, orange, red or combination of these. The rarest colour combination is yellow and blue. It is quite difficult to find, but stays up to a few months on the same coral. Extremely elongated and it's body is transparent with irregular transverse camouflaging bands. They life in black coral, and very hard to spot. Max size is 5 cm.

Distribution

Indo-Pacific from Red Sea and South-Africa to Indonesia, Philippines , also Japan, New Caledonia. As well as in the western Atlantic Ocean, from USA (Massachusetts state) to Brazil

Habitat and Biology

It inhabits temperate and tropical waters. Depth is range between 1 to 231 m. It usually lives in bays and estuaries. It lives associated with seaweed beds, such as Zostera or Diplanthera in latitudes of the northern hemisphere, and Thalassia or Cymodocea in tropical waters. It also occurs in corals of the genera Antillogorgia, Pseudopterogorgia or Pterogorgia. It feeds on plankton.

Tozeuma prawns are gonocoric, or separate sexes. The largest specimen usually acts as a female. Mating occurs just after the female's molt. The male rides the female and deposits his sperm in the female's sperm receptacle. The female can store the sperm for several months before fertilizing the eggs. The eggs are oval, yellowish or green in color, depending on the stage of maturation in which they are found, and carry them under the abdomen; they hatch at night and the larvae become part of the plankton. After a series of molts the larvae settle at the bottom.