Tiniest pistol shrimp i've ever seen

niloc16 · #1 05-28-2007, 11:22 PM

i was doing some fragging and rearranging yesterday and at first i thought this was a sponge or something but then i seen it walk in the bottom of the styro and was kind of shocked. i'm pretty sure it is a pistol, it has two thin claws that extend out the front when it is walking. currently it is whitish and see through but the claws have a tint of blue. i took some pics, hopefully you can see it good. i couldnt bring myself to flush so currently i have it in a container floating in my sump. i was going to take it to LFS and just give it away to someone.

it is sitting on the edge of the frag plug in this pic

untamed · #2 05-28-2007, 11:32 PM

Does it have a distinct "head" and "body"? A pistol shrimp will have a distinct "swimmer body" portion, just like a mantis, camel, peppermint, lobster, etc. etc.

Of course, a pistol would also have one distinctive claw that would be significantly larger than the other.

Hard to tell from the photos, but your critter seems to be sort of "one piece", and have black eyes...more like a big copepod than a shrimp.

niloc16 · #3 05-28-2007, 11:52 PM

i believe it is one body and head. both claws i believe are the same size. maybe i was wrong about it being a pistol shrimp.

Funky_Fish14 · #4 05-29-2007, 06:42 AM

I wouldnt say thats a pistol shrimp, but you do have yourself one mighty neat lookin critter there! Unfortunately I cant help with ident at the moment

Chris

Discustopia · #5 05-29-2007, 05:29 PM

possible Bad news...
check out Ciranolid- a Blood sucking parasite that will attach itself to your fish.
Look at Untamed's post to see if it's close.

Otherwise just a regular Isopod - some tiny - some can reach up to a foot long

untamed · #6 05-29-2007, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discustopia

possible Bad news...
check out Ciranolid- a Blood sucking parasite that will attach itself to your fish.
Look at Untamed's post to see if it's close.

Otherwise just a regular Isopod - some tiny - some can reach up to a foot long

Yes, I'm very familiar with ciranolids right now. I wasn't going to suggest that to Colin...but those two black eyes suggest it is a related critter. On the good news side, Colin, Ciranolids are exceptionally fast swimmers. You wouldn't see one just walking around the base of a coral. So the behaviour doesn't suggest that this is a ciranolid.