Sweep a torch along a wall on a night dive and the rock answers back. Hundreds of small bright points look at you out of every crack and hollow, and most of them are shrimp.
The eyeshine comes from a reflective layer behind the retina that sends light back through it a second time, the same arrangement that makes a cat's eyes glow. In an animal that hunts in the dark it nearly doubles the use of the light available, and the by-product is that a diver with a torch can find every shrimp on a wall in a few seconds while finding almost none of them by daylight.
This one spends the day pressed into the back of a cave or a crevice and comes out after dark to work over the reef for scraps and small animals. It is often called the dancing shrimp, from the way it flicks between footholds rather than walking.
Red with round white spots and a banded white rostrum, and at six centimeters it is large as reef shrimp go.
- deep red body scattered with round white spots
- white rostrum with red bands
- eyes throw back a bright green-white point in a torch beam
- in caves and under ledges by day
- up to 6 cm
