---
title: White-Spotted Ascidian Shrimp (Dactylonia ascidicola)
scientific_name: Dactylonia ascidicola
common_name: White-Spotted Ascidian Shrimp
taxon: Shrimps
published: 2024-11-27T22:12:04.922Z
updated: 2026-08-19T14:02:35.615Z
tags: White-Spotted Ascidian Shrimp, Dactylonia ascidicola, Shrimps, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/shrimps/white-spotted-ascidian-shrimp
---

# White-Spotted Ascidian Shrimp (*Dactylonia ascidicola*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Shrimps (*Caridea*)
- **Size:** 1 cm
- **Depth:** 1-400 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Inside sea squirts, on reef and wrecks
- **Reproduction:** Brooder

## How to recognise it

- translucent body scattered with white spots
- inside the body cavity of a sea squirt, visible through the siphon
- up to 1 cm

Its landlord is one of the least edible animals on the reef, which is the whole point.

Sea squirts defend themselves with a combination almost nothing tolerates: acid stored in the tissue, heavy metals including vanadium concentrated to levels found nowhere else in the sea, and a tough leathery tunic on top. Very few animals eat them, which means very few animals have any reason to go inside one.

So a shrimp that can live in that cavity has a house with a chemical moat. It sits in the water flow the ascidian generates, takes particles out of it, and comes out only briefly. What it costs is a tolerance most crustaceans do not have.

It is the same logic that produced the sea slugs that eat ascidians and the fish that nest in them, and it is a recurring pattern on a reef: anything unpleasant enough to be left alone eventually acquires tenants.

The shrimp is a centimeter long, glassy, and dusted with white spots, and it is usually found by looking through the open siphon of a large solitary sea squirt.

## Scientific synonyms

- *Pontonia ascidicola* Borradaile, 1898

## Range

New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, South Pacific Ocean

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/shrimps/white-spotted-ascidian-shrimp)*
*Updated: August 19, 2026*