Critter ID

[Larry M]

I am taking down my 6 gallon nano tank today in order to ship it, it has been sold. For months I have heard a popping sound coming from the tank. Today I think I found the source of the popping. It's about an inch long.

I checked out the mantis shrimp website http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/
the closest I can see is this one: (Hemisquilla ensigera)

Is it a match? Does anyone want this guy?

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Larry M

See my tanks at Northern Reef

[This message has been edited by Larry M (edited 03-16-2000).]

 

[FOX]

I don't know a whole lot about mantis or pistol shrimp, but don't pistol shrimp have one big claw and one small claw just like the one you found? They are known to make the popping sound also.

FOX

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angelfire.com/ak3/korysreef.htm

 

[horge]

Pistol.

 

[rshimek]

Hi Larry,

It is a pistol shrimp.

Cheers, Ron

 

[Larry M]

That seems to be the consensus all right. From what I can find they are for the most part safe with fish? I would put the pistol into my 40 gallon but I have a mandarin in there.


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Larry M

See my tanks at Northern Reef

 

[rshimek]

Hi Larry,

I hate to say this, but identification is not done by consensus.

It either is something or it ain't and the will of the majority doesn't mean squat.


Cheers, Ron

 

[horge]

It's quite happily consensus that consensus doesn't mean squat when it come to the truth, hehe, no matter what stock phrases people use that suggest otherwise, hehe

 

[Larry M]

LOL
Ron, why do you hate to say it? The statement is most true, of course. I used "consensus" as a figure of speech and got my hands slapped. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Larry M]

You have to admit the picture ain't bad, though.


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Larry M

See my tanks at Northern Reef

 

[Jred]

Hi Larry,

I was just at a fish store in Richfield tonight, and I think they tried to sell me one of those. They claimed that went well with a Watcher Goby? Seems that the shrimp can't see well and use the fish as eyes for danger. The shrimp burrows a hole and both it and the fish hide in there for protection.
Kinda cool, they were trying to catch the one in the store and it was popping like crazy!

I think that is what they were talking about. Dr. Ron, please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[bmw]

I guess it would all make more sense if the "biologists" didn't keep changing the rules of what is what! etc. etc.
Gezz--talking about biting the hand that feeds you.
(I am now prepared for the lecture. )
b.

 

[Tadashi]

The majority may not alway be correct but I think they are pretty close this time.

I do not think it is a mantis shrimp since it does not have the mantis claw appendages. It does look like it is related to the pistol family due to the one big claw.

My pistol clicks more than my mantis shrimp. If anything gets near the goby hole the shrimp goes nuts, to the point it will pick up the offender and dump him in the other corner of the tank.

Do pistol's collapse their entrance at night? Either the tunnel is doing it itself or the shrimp is closing the door.

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Sometimes the majority means that all the fools are on the same side.My Bonsai-reef site

[This message has been edited by Tadashi (edited 03-16-2000).]

 

[rshimek]

Hi,

Larry - regarding the quality of the picture.... How many legs does the shrimp have? How many segments does each leg have? It is a good thing pistol shrimps are basically recognizable by the silouette.

bmw - you say: I guess it would all make more sense if the "biologists" didn't keep changing the rules of what is what! etc. etc.

The rules about what is what haven't changed much for a few hundred years. Names change as we find more about the organisms. Hobbyists who apply common names, scientific names, and some pseudo-scientific names of all their own, tend to cause us more than a bit of grief in the hobby.

Trying to apply more than a general term to many of our animals without handson examination is damn near impossible for a specialist who works with the animals in detail. Of course, such niceites don't bother hobbyists or dealers. So we have such great names as Margarite snails, Meat corals, Tree sponges and other names without any true meaning. Kind of like the old mathematical fudge factor of a "variable constant..."

Cheers, Ron

 

[horge]

Tadashi:
The shrimp closes the door.

 

[bmw]

I thought it was a mere hundred years ago that an alga common in our tanks was identified as an animal?

BTW--I have never seen fudge get old in the math department.

b.


[This message has been edited by bmw (edited 03-17-2000).]

[This message has been edited by bmw (edited 03-17-2000).]

 

[bmw]

Halimeda.
"These jointed, calcareous organisms were long considered to be animals, and later related to the coralline red algae. With the monograph of Barton(1901) the great morphological variation within species was recognized and an approach to classification was made on the basis of internal structure."
Incorrect?
b.

 

[horge]

Ron and Bruce:
Hehe. Arguing validity of the procedure of data organization vs. any attendant errors and adjustments in the execution seems a joust with both horsemen heading the same way.

No one's bashing Linnaeus on down, and I certainly hope no one's expecting instantaneous taxonomic nirvana -- human limitations aside, the extinctions and emergence of species stifles that hope.

BTW regarding pistol shrimp, Larry, mine have never bothered my Pterosynchiropus splendidus (Mandarins): the pistols do pop away as a defensive reflex when those two fishies approach.

 

[rshimek]

Hi,

Ya, horge, I kept trying to lead Bruce to the difference between the process and the execution - too subtle, I suspect.

Cheers, Ron

 

[Larry M]

Hey, thanks Horge, for the answer to my mandarin question. The pistol thanks you too as he has been imprisoned for the past day awaiting vindication. I know there are other sources for this knowledge, I just don't always trust the source.
Here's a parting shot for you....I wasn't the one who used the term "pistol shrimp". Which alpheus would that be?

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Larry M

See my tanks at Northern Reef

 

[bmw]

Hi Ron,
Got to admit--you made me smile with that last post.
Besides, I got an excuse to use that hamster!
How's that for subtle.
b.