Crustaceans: Related Content
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Snapping Shrimp Queen with Eggs
This snapping shrimp female (Synalpheus regalis) is the queen of her colony which means she is the only female to have babies. She stores her clutch of eggs under her abdomen until they hatch - some of the eggs have already developed eyes. Similar to other social animals like ants and bees, non-breeding shrimp are tasked with protecting their sponge from intruders.
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Mantis Shrimp Carries Eggs
A mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) holds her clutch of eggs in her clubbed claws. Usually these claws are weapons that strike hard-shelled prey at speeds of more than 50 miles an hour. Mantis shrimp have compound stalked eyes that allow them to see an array of colors that human eyes cannot - they can even see ultraviolet light and polarized patterns.
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Image Gallery: The Perfect Underwater Photo
For nearly 35 years, National Geographic photojournalist Brian Skerry has been immersing himself in the big blue to get the perfect underwater photograph. He admits that there will never will be a "perfect" photo, but there are tricks to make a photo appealing. He sees himself as an artistic interpreter, swimming in waters all over the world to shoot ocean images that capture animal behavior, stunning seascapes, and the graceful gestures and fluidity of his subjects.
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Coral Hermit Crab
A coral hermit crab, Paguritta harmsi, about the size of two grains of rice, living in coral in the waters of Japan's Ogasawara Islands.
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Baby Sea Turtles in Jalisco, Mexico
These baby olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea) will eventually provide a home to crustaceans, mollusks, and other epibionts. That's according to a survey of epibionts living on mature, nesting olive ridleys and green sea turtles in Jalisco, Mexico. The related study was published in the October 2011 issue of the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Read about the study on our blog.
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Searching for Life -- Epibionts -- On Sea Turtles
Amanda Feuerstein with a nesting olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea). Feuerstein is a co-author of a study that surveyed algae, crustaceans, mollusks, and other epibionts that live on olive ridley and green sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean. You can read about the study on the Ocean Portal blog.
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Crustacean Epibionts
In a 2011 study published in the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, researchers documented a number of different organisms living on olive ridley and green turtles in the Pacific. Of these "epibionts," crustaceans made up more than 40% of those observed. Some are depicted here: Planes major (A & B), Podocerus chelonophilus (C), and Balaenophilus manatorum (D).
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Surveying Life On Sea Turtles
“It is strange to think of a sea turtle as an ecosystem,” says Amanda Feuerstein, program coordinator and research assistant at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, “but they are…they have all of these other animals living on their skin and shells.”
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Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea
In the spring of 2011, a research crew from Oceana spent two months in the brackish Baltic Sea. The Baltic faces challenges from pollution, algae blooms, over fishing, and invasive species. Oceana researchers gathered data, samples, photographs, and videos with the goal of proposing an expanded set of marine protected areas.
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Blue Shark
A blue shark swims through waters off the coast of New England in this image captured by National Geographic photojournalist Brian Skerry. A red-colored female copepod (Echthrogaleus coleoptratus) has hitched a ride on the shark's dorsal fin. The two long, red tails on the copepod are her egg sacs, each containing many hundreds of poker chip-like eggs stacked atop one another.
