shrimp life

[zilla870]

how long can ghost shrimp live if not eaten?

 

[Lil'Fishy]

"The ghost shrimp is surprising long lived. A 10 cm individual excluding appendages may be 10 years old and many reach an age of 15 or 16 years old."

http://fish.orbust.net/ghostshrimp.html

you can type "ghost shrimp" in a search engine and get a lot of info on them

 

[Meredith]

I have had a ghost shrimp in my 55 since July. I had something like 5 at one time. This little guy is the only survivor. There is a pic of him in my gallery.

 

[shantyt]

The shrimp discussed there is probably not be the same species as the one sold in a aquarium stores as "ghost shrimp". I've never seen one larger than 3cm or so. A 10cm ghost would be one seriously hulking shrimp!

Also, check out these quotes: "When of adult size the males will be approximately one whole inch bigger than the females, the females may also be carrying pink eggs on their undersides."

The eggs I've seen are green, not pink.

"The ghost shrimp is pale pink to orange with the male possessing one claw that is much larger." I don't think that this is true for the aquarium ghost shrimp either.

Finally, the shrimp they are talking about here is Callianassa californiensis. I believe the normal aquarium ghost shrimp is in the geuns Palaeomonetes.

Here's a pretty sweet page on ghost shrimp: http://www.fishpondinfo.com/shrimp2.htm#ghost

 

[Veneer]

"The ghost shrimp is surprising long lived. A 10 cm individual excluding appendages may be 10 years old and many reach an age of 15 or 16 years old."

http://fish.orbust.net/ghostshrimp.html

you can type "ghost shrimp" in a search engine and get a lot of info on them

That page is simply rife with inaccuracies; though it mostly refers to Neotrypaea californiensis (the genus heading Callianassa is obsolete; see this link for a clearer image), a burrowing "ghost shrimp" of tidal marine mudflats, the image, misleadingly, is one of a true freshwater ghost shrimp (Palaemonetes sp.).

Of the last image:

Neotrypaea californiensis (Dana, 1854)

The ghost shrimp is not a shrimp at all, but actually related to hermit crabs. Callianassid crustaceans like this one live in burrows in muddy bottoms; but the one shown in the image at the top of the page was photographed as it sat in a glass cylinder in the lab.

A man collecting marine ghost shrimp with a "shrimp gun"

The maximum lifespan of freshwater ghost shrimp is 18 months or so, though most specimens succumb to stress well before then.