Shrimps and Protandry
Sometimes it is very hard to see if a shrimp is female or male – especially when it is young. People are happy when a first classified male suddenly is berried and carries eggs. But this not always demonstrates wrong classification by the shrimp keeper because in many shrimp species individuals can change their sex.
The techniqual term for this transformation is protandry: it describes a male to female metamorphosis.
Andreas Karge observed this phenomenon with xiphocaris elongata, a species of the simple breeding type which needs brackish water for larval developpement. Regrettably, scientists are not sure about caridina cantonensis or the neocardina species, but by reason that females are always bigger, this assumption is not so vague.
Tags: Protandry
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