The Life Cycle of a Shrimp

Okay, I guess I did say I would drop some science in three parts, so here it is, the life cycle of a shrimp:

Right now, roe shrimp are being caught (the females with eggs), so I guess we should start there.  Shrimp lay their eggs (500,000 – 1,000,00 per female) in the ocean up to a few miles offshore, but mostly near the beach.  Within a day the egg (1/64 of an inch) will hatch and the new larval shrimp will feed on the yolk reserves.  The shrimp is about the size of a plankton at this point and will stay in this form through four more stages. 

First, the shrimp will develop a mouth and an abdomen so it can begin feeding on algae.  This is the protozoan stage, and the shrimp will grow to about 1/12 of an inch in this stage.  Then, there are three mysid stages where it will begin to develop legs and antennae and grow to about a fifth of an inch.

After that, there are two post larval stages where the shrimp will assume the overall appearance of an adult shrimp and grow to about a quarter of an inch.  So far, this process has taken about two weeks, and the shrimp has moved from the ocean back into the creeks where they will continue growing.  Adult shrimp grow very rapidly, and will molt about a dozen times in their life.  This is closely related to the lunar cycle as they do it on the new moon, so they can be more hidden from predators. After shrimp are fully grown, they will move back out to the open waters, which is when we have our fall run of white shrimp.

An adult shrimp’s body is divided into three segments, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.  The head and thorax are fused together and covered by a carapace which also encloses the gills.  Shrimp heads have eyes on stalks and the long antenna.  There are fourteen pairs of appendages.  The three pairs closest to the head are modified mouth parts, the next five pairs are walking legs, then there are five pairs of swimming legs, and finally one pair that form the tail.  Shrimp are considered decapods (like crabs and lobsters) because they have ten pairs of legs that are used for walking and swimming.

My favorite part of the shrimp, though, is the muscular body, which I find to be a good vessel for cocktail sauce.

source: http://www.scwildlife.com/pubs/septoct2008/shrimp.html