Shrimp ID please

[supergaijin]

View attachment 150964


This shrimp (crab?) was found in the Maldives (Indian Ocean) on the house reef in front of our diving center.

Size: body approx 15mm. Arms extended: 40mm
Depth: 5m
View attachment 150965

Any help much appreciated

 

[supergaijin]

I don't know why the images are not appearing properly- hope this fixes it.

 

[KeithG]

It is a bit similar in appearance to the Caribbean neck crab, which it is not since this is the wrong ocean.

I would start my search with decorator crabs.

 

[vincent54]

If it has those really long arms, and a shorter body, It may be a member of the squat lobster family. They are finding new species all the time. Is there a larger image? Someone has pretty good eyesight to identify that on the bottom. Cheers

 

[supergaijin]

Sorry nothing larger- I was bumbling around the bottom looking for macro stuff so my eyes were already focussed in for small stuff. A whale shark might have been eating a manta in the background and I wouldn't have noticed it There is a banded 'boxer' shrimp with very long arms in similar proportions to this guy... but much larger.

Perhaps a juvenile of that?

Thanks for the help so far- it's a difficult mission to many identify small animals.

 

[KeithG]

I do not think it is a juvenile or a banded boxer shrimp.

Your banded boxer shrimp looks exactly like a Caribbean banded coral shrimp from pictures I find via google. Juvie coral shrimps look exactly like adults, just smaller. So I rule them out.

Your shrimp / crab appears to have a well establish covering of white growths on it. Appears to be hydroids? To me, that screams adult decorator crab of some sort. If you google neck crabs you will see lots of pictures of crabs with a similar profusion of growths. They are a form of camouflage and protection if they actually use stingy hydroids. That's why I am claiming a decorator crab of some sort.

But maybe I am reading the pictures wrong? Can you determine from the original pics if it is wearing a coat of hydroids?

P.s. try googling hydroid decorator crab. I found some similar but not exact matches....

 

[supergaijin]

The shots were taken with a Canon S95 without flash. Unfortunately I was shooting at f2 and so the focus is sometimes... well not. Using Lightroom I've cropped and sharpened a bit more.


2nd shot



I guess the smart money is indeed on a species of decorator crab. However much of the 'stuff' on the body and arms is just silty substrate from the bottom.

Again the images aren't coming up... weird..... and now they are. I edited the pics and put the words "2nd shot" in between them. They appear now for me.

edited- 3rd try

 

[Searcaigh]

Can't see the images and the link doesn't work