Dragon Shrimp

It is a shrimp species from the Palaemonidae family. It is also known as Gorgonian Horned Shrimp or Gorgonian Pandalid Shrimp.

Distribution

Western Pacific from the Philippines and Indonesia to the Marshall Islands, also Japan

Description

Max length is 2 cm. Body smooth, slightly compressed, integument rather thin, poorly calcified. Rostrum absent. Carapace with large triangular anterior and posterior median dorsal processes; supraorbital, antennal, and pterygostomial spines absent; inferior orbital angle obsolete. Abdomen smooth, slender, with triangular median dorsal process on posterior of third segment; all pleura rounded. Telson with 3 pairs of small distolateral spines, posterior border rounded with 5 pairs of small spines. Eyes well developed, cornea hemispherical, without ocellus. Antennule with biramous reduced flagella; stylocerite short, distally truncate; statocyst absent. Its color ranges from brownish to yellowish green depending on the host whip corals they lives in. It has spots from white to orange at the top of the spinous processes and legs.

Habitat

It lives symbiotically with antipatharian corals of the genus Cirripathes. It feeds on zooplankton.