This is the shrimp that gets eaten, and the fishery runs on its habits.
King prawns bury themselves in sand through daylight and come out to feed after dark, which is why prawn trawling is a night job. They also emerge less on bright nights, so catches drop around the full moon and rise around the new, and the fleet plans around a lunar calendar. Anyone who has wondered why prawn prices move on a monthly rhythm has their answer.
Biologically the interesting part is that penaeid prawns do not brood. Where almost every shrimp on this reef carries its eggs glued under the abdomen until they hatch, a female king prawn releases hundreds of thousands of eggs straight into open water and leaves. The young pass through a series of larval forms, drift into shallow nursery grounds, and return offshore as adults.
That is why this animal can be farmed and the reef shrimp cannot: it produces enormous numbers of independent larvae, which is exactly what a hatchery needs.
- large pale prawn with a long saw-toothed rostrum
- yellow-brown legs and tail fan, sometimes with blue edging
- buried in sand by day with only the eyes and antennae showing
- up to 22 cm
