Glass Shrimp

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Glass shrimp (Palaemon sp.) | Dona Paula, Goa

Glass shrimps get their name from their mostly transparent bodies, which make them hard to spot at a glance. They are commonly found in tide pools (small temporarily isolated pools of seawater formed during low tide). This one is a 2-inch long female carrying eggs.

Clicked this in a shallow sandy pool using the 100mm Macro lens from above the water's surface. The sand suspended in the water was due to continuous wave action and could not be avoided. Not the ideal EXIF settings, but I couldn't do much better.

Canon 500D, Canon 100 mm Macro USM
SS 1/500
Av 5.6
ISO 400
EC -1
Cropped for composition

Thanks, C&C welcome.

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Interesting frame, nice record :)

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovley. Had never seen or heard of this species before :(. The suspended sand particles create a very nice effect. I would have liked a bit more space at the top (if cropped from top) to include the tentacles (?) in full. Is this also consumed by humans? Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

I have not seen it being widely fished or consumed, but it does occur in small scale and artisanal catches, especially in estuaries.
The antennae are extremely long, and I deliberately left them out of the frame in order to get a closer view.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice image and an interesting write up. Do all of them have those stripes/ lines on the body? I ask because i have seen similar shrimp which are literally like glass..almost see through.

TFS
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This is nice. Good that you were able to click it from the side and got the profile. The shrimp is able to blend nicely with the muddy pool. Did it not vanish on your approach? Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Roopak- All the ones I've seen have stripes. The markings are harder to see in smaller individuals, making them hard to spot unless they move. I could spot this one easily because it was large and gravid with eggs. Of course, I don't know about all the shrimp species in our waters... there could be transparent ones. :)

Sabyasachi- They tend to walk away when approached very closely, and launch themselves off when touched. But moving in for a macro shot from above the water surface seems okay.

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Brilliant...I quite like the natural 'dirty' look...it's amazing to see the diversity of 'life' on earth, wherever you look, if closely, one sees something living, growing, carrying on... :) magical world