Periclimenes soror

Periclimenes soror, also called the starfish shrimp, is a species of shrimp that lives as a symbiont with sea stars. Periclimenes soror is a species of little shrimp with a truncated rostris, and showing a wide variety of coats, but often with a distinctive white stripe or white dots pattern on the back. The rest of the body varies with the host starfish: it is often "a deep purple red" when living on Culcita, Protoreaster or Pentaceraster, but red with a white dorsal stripe when living on Acanthaster, and can also be transparent[1] Adults reach up to 15 millimetres (0.6 in) long.[2]

Periclimenes soror
Starfish shrimp (Periclimenes soror) on a Culcita schmideliana.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Subphylum:
Crustacea
Class:
Malacostraca
Order:
Decapoda
Infraorder:
Caridea
Family:
Palaemonidae
Genus:
Periclimenes
Species:
P. soror
Binomial name
Periclimenes soror
Nobili, 1904

Ecology and behaviour

It lives commensally on starfishes, including the "crown-of-thorns" starfish, Acanthaster planci.

Distribution

This species has a wide distribution across the Indo-Pacific and in the Gulf of Panama.[1]

References
  1. A. J. Bruce (1982). "The shrimps associated with Indo-West Pacific echinoderms, with the description of a new species in the genus Periclimenes Costa, 1844 (Crustacea: Pontoniinae)" (PDF). Australian Museum Memoirs. 16: 191–216.
  2. Isabella Gordon (1939). "Redescription of Periclimenes soror Nobili (Crustacea, Decapoda)" (PDF). Annals and Magazine of Natural History. ser. 11. 4 (21): 395–400. doi:10.1080/00222933908527002.


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