Squat Anemone Shrimp

The squat anemone shrimp, often called the sexy shrimp, is a tiny shrimp that lives on other animals. It is found across the Indo-West Pacific and in parts of the Atlantic, including the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. It sits among the tentacles of a sea anemone or a mushroom coral, feeding on the host's tentacle tissue and on the plankton caught in the host's mucus. It is a favourite subject for macro photographers.

Also known as: popcorn shrimp, humpbacked shrimp, sexy shrimp, dancing shrimp, thor shrimp

Almost no other reef shrimp holds its tail fan curled up over its head. That posture alone, on a shrimp this small sitting in anemone tentacles, is enough to confirm it.

This is a very small shrimp, olive brown in colour, with white patches placed evenly on both sides of the body. Each white patch is outlined by a thin blue line. Its most striking habit is the way it holds itself: the abdomen is curved up over the back so that the tail fan sits above the head.

Look for it in shallow reef areas, in bays and near shore, down to about 60 m. It almost always sits on a host animal, usually a shallow-water sea anemone or a mushroom coral. Several different anemone species are used. One or several shrimps may share a single host, and where a host has thick, branching pseudotentacles the shrimp hides deep among them, along with other small crabs and brittle stars that use different parts of the same anemone.

The female carries her fertilised eggs under her abdomen until they hatch. The young pass through several larval stages in open water. Before they settle, they are guided to a host by both smell and sight, and they will accept several different anemone species.

• 

  Banded Coral Shrimp

  Stenopus hispidus

• 

  Common Prawn

  Palaemon serratus

• 

  Emperor Shrimp

  Zenopontonia rex

• 

  Harlequin shrimp

  Hymenocera picta

• 

  Pederson Cleaner Shrimp

  Ancylomenes pedersoni

• 

  Rockpool Prawn

  Palaemon elegans