Last time on Evolution’s Creature Feature, we shared with you the amazing Frogfish and how you can find the rare Marbled-Mouth Frogfish around the waters of Malapascua. These fish rely on their camouflage to hunt for food. Our next creature feature also uses camouflage so that annoying aliens breathing through tanks, along with their predators, have difficulty finding them. This time around we’ll share with you a bad-ass looking shrimp with a very fitting bad-ass name.
May I introduce to you our next creature feature, the Saw-Blade Shrimp (Tozeuma Armatum).
Belonging to the Broken-Back Shrimp species, these crustaceans have stripes along its body providing great camouflage. Keep those eyes peeled! Here are a few facts about these awesome shrimps:
- Lives in Whip Coral or Black Coral bushes
- Sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of 5 or more
- Long and slender bodies w/ long and slender legs, stretched out in front of their long and slender faces, which makes it even harder to spot them in the long and slender branches of the coral they call home
- Feeds on parasites, algea & plankton
- Coloration varies usually matching with the color of their host corals
- Can get to as big as 5cm
- Can be found around 3-30m (10-100 ft.)
- Distribution: Indo-West Pacific, Red Sea
We have multiple sites here at Malapascau where we can see these bad-ass looking shrimps. Gato Island, Bogtong Bato, Kalanggaman Island, Lapus I & II to name a few of them. Recent guest Jan Morton got really nice photos of these shrimps .
Stay tuned for the next Creature Feature!
Cheers for the photos mate!
