the common shrimp in a rockpool on the beach, just
before its going to dug itself in the sand, by using
it swimminglegs: with these legs it removes the sand.
Then it uses the 2 long antenna's to sweep the sand over itself
and thus get burried into the sand. Only the eyes and antenna's
stay above the sand.
With thanks to fryslansite
the antenna's
The antenna's are very sensitiv
instruments for taste and smell.
The grey shrimp is able to locate
the direction and distance to the
food.
The antenna's are very flexible , made
from 130 joints. It can also be used as
a whip, used against fishes.
When digged in the sand the antenna's scout
the surrounding by making circels.
A shrimp touches an object by simply
holding the tip of the sensitiv antenna
against it. In this way it can feel and smell.
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The common shrimp lives on
the European Nortsea and French
and Portugese coast,
and even the Marrocan coast.
They do live in brakkish water as well
like the Baltic sea.
The amount of shrimp that
is catched by the fishing fleet
has stabilized.
Shrimp or Prawn cocktail
This is the famous, classic shrimp coctail recipe:
Mix the mayonnaise/ketchup/shrims/Madeira and whipped cream.
Put it in a cocktailglass, serve with parsley, a small piece
of lemon and paprika powder
Don't use the common shrimp for this purpose: the are grey
and look unedible.
Common shrimp
The common shrimp (Cragnon Cragnon or grey shrimp or North sea shrimp) can be
found along the North sea coast. This animal lives in the shallow water on the bottom
(epibentisch), and feeds himself with living and dead vegetable and animal material
that it finds. It is almost transparent or lightly grey, and can dig itself in.
This it makes extremely difficult for predators to discover this little creature.
Most of it activities are nocturnal. At daytime its hidden under a stone are or
buried in sand. With it's powerfull tail they can escape all the other North sea
inhabitants. They jump high enough for jumping out of the aquarium.
( more then 10 cm high!). The ordinary shrimp can become up to 3 years
old and very tame , eating out of youre hand.
Aeration
If you use aeration in youre aquarium, don't use a bubbleblock,
as this produces fine bubbles. These fine bubbles stick in the gulls
of the shrimp and stick there, shrimps have difficulties removing
these fine bubbles.
Waterquality
The Northsea shrimp or grey shrimp lives in seawater, but brakkish water
will do the job as well. This shrimp can withstand great variation in
temperature and isn't very sensitiv for nitrate, phosfate or organic
pollution.
Childern compare the common shrimps they have collected at low tide.
Living together
The common shrimp spend most of his time together in large groups,
hiding in the sand, quarreling with each other or searching for food
or stealing it from a neighbour or an fish, like a goby .
Young fishes and young shrimps are not safe for them, cannibalism is common
The shrimps spend a lot of time quereling with their neighbours
living in the sand
Nortsea shrimps spend most of the time on the bottom of the sea. They have adapted
to this live form by a lot of ways:
- The colour of their skin can change and adapt to the colour of the sand,
like a chameleon.
- Their eyes are placed on the top of their head, as the danger comes from above.
- They have very long antenna's used for scouting their environment.
living with the sandgoby
The sand goby is living in the same habitat: Sandy shallows, intertidal with
shallow sandy pools, estuaries. Its feeding on the same prey (worms and crustacaens),
and has the same enemy's. So these animals look very much on each other and behave,
an example of niche adaption called analogy (Resemblance in body form or behavior)
So the adaptation to the same or similar environmental conditions (and not due to common ancestry)
leads to the same body forms. But a grey shrimp is more succesfull than a sand goby and so more
abundant. If you both give them food at the same time, the shrimp collects it all
or steale it from the goby
what do they eat?
Analyzing the food in there stomach shows that two third is living food , worms ,
other shrimps, small shellfish, and everything else that can be eaten.
The other one third are mostly decaying dead fish.
In an aquarium its easy to feed them with pellets of fishfood , made of compressed
fish meal mixed with sandgrains to make it sink. Sometimes I feed them with bloodworms,
artemia or mysis .
Because the ordinary shrimp is transparent, the process of degesting the food can
be followed :the shrimp gets more or less the colour of its food.
During summertime a shrimp can eat 10% of its weight daily. They can grow up to
8 cm.
Enemies of the shrimp
Shrimps are much faster than their enemies and competitors: with a slap of its tail its
even faster than many larger animals. The shrimp has by far the highest escape speed
under water, much more rapidly than fish and also more rapidly than their competitors
(copecods and goby) By slapping its tail the shrimp creates a sound that can be heard.
But the most important enemy comes from above: gulls consume a lot of them. this shrimp is scouting the surface with the aid of its antenna's
The Common or grey shrimp is part of the beautiful
live on the beach in the summer. Painting of Isaac Israels.
