Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Purple Zebra Shrimp


The Purple Zebra Shrimp is a very rare shrimp, so much so that little information about this species is available. Unlike other freshwater shrimps, Purple Zebra has a missing rostrum, resulting in its eyes almost joining together. Coupled with a unique green crown, a transparent body and multiple purple stripes, this extremely tiny shrimp poses a dreamy appearance, hence acquired the name Dream Shrimp.

Although it is very shy in nature and likes to hide most of the time, Purple Zebra is specially fascinating after molting, where its stripes becomes red, then orange before returning to purple again. In nature, pregnant female swims to brackish water to lay its eggs. The young shrimplets require full strength salt water to survive before returning to freshwater as adult.