Potimirim?

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Veneer
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Potimirim?

Post by Veneer »

Image

At least that's what I think it is. Leveling-off of growth probably discounts juvenile Atya, definitely not Micratya poeyi or Typhlatya monae, and habitat and morphology aren't really consistent with descriptions of Jonga serrei.

Collected in Río Espiritu Santo, Puerto Rico over a year ago, amidst overhanging leafy vegetation along a rocky stream bank. Place of origin would narrow it down to either Potimirim americana, Potimirim glabra, or Potimirim mexicana. Now shares a 10-gallon tank with juvenile red cherries, Melanoides tuberculata, and Tarebia granifera (all descendants of a single specimen from Puerto Rico). At the time of its capture, the shrimp was only a few millimeters long, but it's now a little over a centimeter. The white longitudinal stripe developed as the initially translucent juvenile aged.

Filter-feeding behavior is occasionally observed (fan appendages are deployed as the shrimp clings to sponge filter air-tube stem or sponge surface) but substrate-sweeping is more common. The latter behavior, from my intermittent observations, may have increased in frequency due to conditioning over the duration of its captivity -- at present, this shrimp will acrobatically zip over to flake food. Said fan apparatus displays some interesting physical properties -- they're capable of rapidly lifting and roiling disproportionally large grains of sand. Swimming is rapid and jetlike. Behavioral interaction with the cherries is limited, but there seems to be a disconnect in tactile/visual communication; blithe forward barging of foraging cherries elicits short bursts of backward retreat, as though in response to an aggressive display. Antennae-waving and nudging may also be seen in these circumstances (no response from the cherries), but never any offensive use of the pereiopods (as reported with Atyopsis and Atya).
Guba
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Re: Potimirim?

Post by Guba »

I'm curious, if it was collected over a year ago, is that a recent picture? It sure looks small for 1 year old.
Veneer
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Re: Potimirim?

Post by Veneer »

Guba wrote:I'm curious, if it was collected over a year ago, is that a recent picture? It sure looks small for 1 year old.
That was taken around a month ago. You're right -- it is quite small (the smallest grown shrimp I've ever kept, which isn't saying much, since I mostly deal with giant Macrobrachium), but I believe it's a male, which could contribute to that. The literature isn't very helpful about lifespan.
Mustafa
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Re: Potimirim?

Post by Mustafa »

Definitely a Potimirim sp.. Potimirim are basically miniature Atyas and they seem to have developed from shrimp that looked like Atya spp. I.e. since there weren't any real dwarf shrimp in the Americas, the Atya-like large filter-feeding shrimp occupied that empty niche by developing into miniature, dwarf-shrimp like species. Very nice shrimp! :)
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