The Monaco Shrimp is a species in the order of Decapoda and thus belongs to the subphylum of the Crustacea.
Description
Lysmata seticaudata has an elongated, red coloured body with bright streaks from head to tail. In addition, luminous white to blue dots are distributed on its body. Its eyes are black.
It reaches a maximum length of 40mm.
Habitat and Distribution
The Monaco Shrimp populates rocky ground. When diving in the Canary Islands you can only rarely observe them.
Apart from the Canaries, Lysmata seticaudata is common in the Mediterranean Sea and the Northern Atlantic.
Biology
The Monaco Shrimp is very closely related to the Scarlet-Striped Cleaning Shrimp and also cleans fish and other species of parasites and dead skin remains. Furthermore its diet consists of detritus, zooplankton and glass roses.
In addition, they are hermaphroditic. However, self-fertilization is not possible! There must always be two animals that fertilize the eggs of each other, with no distinct male or female in the mating.
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