Pederson Cleaner Shrimp

Pederson's cleaner shrimp sets up shop among the stinging tentacles of a sea anemone, waving its long white feelers to call in fish for a clean. Reef fish line up at these tiny cleaning stations to have pests picked off.

Within its Caribbean range, this shrimp is easy to name. Its see-through body dotted with blue and violet, plus its long trailing white feelers, is enough on its own to tell it apart from other reef shrimp.

This is a small, mostly see-through shrimp, marked with blue and violet patches along its body. Its long, white feelers stand out clearly against its clear body.

It lives in the Caribbean Sea, including reefs off Bermuda, at depths of 1 to 35 m. It always pairs up with a host sea anemone, such as the corkscrew anemone or the giant Caribbean anemone. It moves freely among the tentacles that would sting other animals. It usually shares its anemone with just one or two others of its kind, though sometimes many more crowd onto a single host.

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  Banded Coral Shrimp

  Stenopus hispidus

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  Common Prawn

  Palaemon serratus

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  Emperor Shrimp

  Zenopontonia rex

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  Harlequin shrimp

  Hymenocera picta

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  Rockpool Prawn

  Palaemon elegans

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  Scarlet cleaner shrimp

  Lysmata amboinensis