Male or female?

[Ekenfo]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me if this shrimp is male or female? And what is the yellow thingy inside of it?



Thanks

Ekenfo

[Mustafa]

Hi Ekenfo,

Female, ovaries.

Mustafa

[Ekenfo]

Thanks a lot Mustafa.

I have 9 cherry shrimps and only one doesn't seem to have ovaries. I'll try to take a picture of it. I hope this is a male because I want to reproduce them. Otherwise I'll need to find a male somewhere...


Ekenfo

[Ekenfo]

And what about this one?



This is the only one that doesn't seem to have ovaries.

Can anyone confirm this is a male?

Thanks

Ekenfo

[retardo]

looks male to me. the carapace where the swimmerettes are located does not extend too much from the main body, at least, as far as i can tell. of course, there is always the possibility it is a juvenile and hasn't fully developed yet.

mustafa can tell u for sure, but i'm pretty confident it's a male. very nice ratio of m:f tho.

rich

[beckypyyeung]

Excuse me, the shrimp on the last photo looks like a yummy shrimp on a dish. Very well, so am I sure that Mustafa is the final answer to your question.

[Mustafa]

It's a female for sure. She has ovaries just like all other females, but you cannot see anything in them since she does not show any signs of egg-development in the ovaries (yet). Once eggs are being produced the ovaries will turn yellow with eggs.

The males are almost see-through when they are fully grown and you can see a slight red hue on them here and there. They are very slender and quite different from the females.

I bet you bought your animals from some store or online store, right? That's why you got all females. Most imported shrimp tend to be females and the people that sell you these shrimp do not know a thing about them so they think that the males are a different species (since they look so different) and only send you females even if they have some males swimming around in their tanks.

This would not have happened to you if you had bought domestically bred animals.


Take care,
Mustafa

[Ekenfo]

Excuse me, the shrimp on the last photo looks like a yummy shrimp on a dish.

It's because I put it in a jar to take the picture.

[Ekenfo]

It's a female for sure. She has ovaries just like all other females, but you cannot see anything in them since she does not show any signs of egg-development in the ovaries (yet). Once eggs are being produced the ovaries will turn yellow with eggs.

I would have waited a long time for the babies... Now I need to find at least a male somewhere...

I bet you bought your animals from some store or online store, right? That's why you got all females. Most imported shrimp tend to be females and the people that sell you these shrimp do not know a thing about them so they think that the males are a different species (since they look so different) and only send you females even if they have some males swimming around in their tanks.

Yup, I got them from a store. The only place I know that sells them! And they sure don't know a thing about them...

This would not have happened to you if you had bought domestically bred animals.

This is a problem since I don't know anyone who breed them..

Do you think you'll have some males ready soon? And can you ship shrimps to Canada without much problems?

Thanks

Ekenfo

[Lotus]

Some stores definitely sell male and female cherry shrimp. I got a reasonable m:f ratio when I bought mine. The store owner tends to get most of his fish from wholesalers that deal in Asian fish, so perhaps males are sometimes imported.

[eraserbones]

Mustafa --

Could you add a photo of a male to the cherry shrimp entry on the varieties page, if you have one handy? There seems to be a lot of interest in telling the difference -- I've been wondering as well.

Thanks!

[Mustafa]

Some stores definitely sell male and female cherry shrimp. I got a reasonable m:f ratio when I bought mine. The store owner tends to get most of his fish from wholesalers that deal in Asian fish, so perhaps males are sometimes imported.

Yes, males *are* imported but wholesalers and dealers think they are different species and only sell the red shrimp, which are all female.

[Mustafa]

Mustafa --

Could you add a photo of a male to the cherry shrimp entry on the varieties page, if you have one handy? There seems to be a lot of interest in telling the difference -- I've been wondering as well.

Thanks!

I just added a picture of a male to the Red Cherry Shrimp entry on the "Shrimp Varieties" page. I was going to do it anyway, but now I finally got around to doing it. It's not the best picture in the world, but it'll do the job for now. Even the males can be variable in color. This particular one in the picture actually has a lot of red...others show much less red and can be almost colorless.

Mustafa

[eraserbones]

Thanks!