Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I just had to vent. I HATE when people say or write 'cherry red shrimp'. Especially in auctions if they're selling shrimp. To me, if you call RCS 'cherry reds' you don't know what you're doing and don't deserve to sell them.

CRS = crystal red shrimp
RCS = red cherry shrimp

The convention is NOT to call them 'cherry reds' to avoid this confusion. These abbreviations are in place for a reason, and accepted by all serious invert-heads.

Someone tried to correct me on this at another (obviously, not invert-based) forum. He said well, I looked it up on Google and there are 177,000 hits when I type in 'cherry red shrimp'. So what? Just because it's common doesn't make it right.

Grrr!

I hear you. When I first joined this forum a long, long time ago (about 18mo) cherry red was common. But now red cherry shrimp has replaced it for the most part, at least for those of us who have decided to progress

A pet peeve of mine. There's no reason whatsoever for the word "red" to be in there - the word "cherry" is there to denote red. Even "RCS" and "CRS" gets confusing. I wonder why the German "red fire shrimp" never took off.

lampeye, I'm just guessing the name 'red chery shrimp' and abbreviation RCS took because 'CS' may have been easily confused as a typo? Just a guess. 'RFS' would certainly eliminate all confusion, but I just can't get used to it.

Yeah, the accepted abbreviations are very similar. But anyone who spends time educating themselves will know that 'cherry red shrimp' is NOT correct.

Neonshrimp wrote:now red cherry shrimp has replaced it for the most part, at least for those of us who have decided to progress

Aren't we cool?

lampeye wrote:I wonder why the German "red fire shrimp" never took off.

Actually, 'Fire Red' is common in Europe, at least in Poland. Alas, 'Red Cherry' is also popular, so there is a bit of a mess
Another difference - 'Snowball shrimp' is know as 'White Pearl'.

Confusing That's why I like to use Latin names.

Jackie wrote:Confusing That's why I like to use Latin names.

I agree with that... except that in this hobby a lot of our shrimp haven't been formally assigned to scientific names

I call my cherry shrimp, cherry shrimp is that okay?
Take care,
Mary.

mduros wrote: cherry shrimp is that okay?

oh yeah, I have no probems with that one. 'Cherry shrimp' is much preferable to placing the 'red' in the wrong place.

Sorry, I'm a trained scientist so incorrect nomenclature is a huge pet peeve of mine. People cannot efficiently and accurately exchange info if they are talking about different things: CRS vs. RCS.

What I was mostly complaining about is when, even after being corrected by an established shrimp breeder, someone still refuses to learn and even insists that they are right even though they JUST bought their very first shrimp.

So you don't fall into that category at all, Mary


[edit: woohoo! I've officially been upgraded to 'Shrimpaholic' status I think I'm going to add that to my resume]

This kind of confusion is why we should move toward using scientific genus and species names. Then there is no confusion.

YuccaPatrol wrote:This kind of confusion is why we should move toward using scientific genus and species names. Then there is no confusion.

Again, the problem is that most shrimp species we keep in our tanks (and most species in the wild actually) have either not been identified or need some major revisions in nomenclature as none have been done for decades or over a hundred years (as in many cases). Shrimp, especially freshwater shrimp, have been neglected by scientists for a long time.

Luckily, more and more scientists are using DNA analysis to determine relations between species. This is the right way to go and should shed some light in the future.

I agree that scientific names should be used where available, but in cases such as these (freshwater shrimp) it's actually better to use the "common" names for now as the scientific names either keep changing, are non-existent or are expected to change in a major way in the future. The common names, on the other hand, won't change. And with digital cameras as wide-spread as they are today, it's usually not a huge problem to post a picture of your mystery shrimp with the "weird name" for others to identify it as one of the "common name" shrimp already known to the hobby.