RCS eating her own viable eggs or egg release procedure?

Guybrush · Post by **Guybrush** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:58 am

During a shrimp-watching session a while back, I noticed one of my berried RCS acting oddly. It looked like she was eating here own eggs. Not dropped eggs, mind you, but ones near hatching (I could see their eyes and I saw new shrimplets the next day). I've only seen it the once and never saw it happen again.

Has anyone else seen something like this happed? Or am I being paranoid and that was a part of the egg release procedure?

Here are some pictures and a video:

Video

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 6:28 am

Hi Guybrush,

What you suspect the berried RCS of doing is also strange to me. However, what she might have been doing is collecting eggs that were being dropped. This looks to be the case especially if the pictures you posted are in forward sequence.

I have not had any of my females drop their eggs so late in the process but it looks as if the eggs in your picture are so close to hatching and as you have said, did the next day. So how many babies did you have after all the eggs hatched?

Post by **Mustafa** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 7:22 am

I don't really see any unusual behavior in the picture and videos. What she's doing is absolutely normal. She's just picking through the eggs. Females tend to do that once in a while. If she were really eating the eggs, she would take the egg directly to her mouth and chomp down on it. Dwarf shrimp do that with small food items instead of picking them apart.

Shrimp&Snails · Post by **Shrimp&Snails** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:12 am

Lovely photos...very nice detail.