I have noticed that Cardinal Shrimp are very social and will spend much time in twos around the tank. They also seem to clean each other quite often. Last night I was watching the tanks when all the shrimp became more active and began moving about oddly. Next I observed a couple of these shrimp slowly tapping at each other face to face which soon turned into an odd dance like ritual and they were more embracing with leggs still than doing the short fights we see other Dwarf Shrimp get involved in.
This went on for a couple minutes then they locked together face to face
I couldn't get a shot off to show the actual face to face embrace, but it was caught them as they were letting go. Other shrimp would come running up, but were chased off by the smaller of the two shown. Curious indeed and I have seen the embracing behavior at other times, but not for such a long period of time. I looked in the tank for quite a while this morning hoping to perhaps see a berried female, but there are so many places to hide and so many shrimp I can't tell yet.
Now I am not at all claiming this was mating and I just don't know at this point, but these shrimp do not (so far) in my experience swim around the tank at all and move about almost strictly by walking so perhaps mating procedures are also different that other Dwarf Shrimp? I do know these guys are much more social and seem to use the white legs as almost a communication tool. These shrimp have settled in now and are just a hoot to watch and I will really be paying attention to see if this happens again and if it is indeed related in any way to mating.
My question would now be to those keeping Cardinal Shrimp as to what sort of mating behavior has been witnessed by those that have successfully bred these shrimp. Do males actually swim about when the female is ready or is what I witnessed perhaps actual mating?
Cheers, Bill