Example 11d

All images copyright protected, © Doug Segar and Elaine Stamman Segar.

In this case, we were actually looking for, and found on another part of the underside of this same seastar, a somewhat larger shrimp (about 1 cm long). This species, Periclimenes soror, is often a commensal on this species of seastar, which is found in a range of colors from dark blue to green, pink or yellow. The Periclimenes soror is almost always the same color as its host seastar.

You may have noticed that we have not given even a probable species name for the totally transparent shrimp in the prior photographs. This is because it cannot be even tentatively identified from the literature available to us. Perhaps it is a species that has not been described before. Nonetheless, it is found on the same seastar as the Periclimenes soror, and it is about half the size of the Periclimenes soror.The Periclimenes soror on this seastar is about the largest reported size of this species. Is it possible the transparent shrimp might simply be a juvenile of the same species? Without further study of other specimens, or further information from such studies that might have been performed, it is not possible to decide these questions.