Brown Rock Shrimp

• Its shell is so thick and hard that it is peeled like a small lobster rather than like a shrimp.
• Individuals bury themselves during the day leaving only their eyes clear of the sediment.
• It is called a rock shrimp for its shell: thick, rigid and almost stony, quite unlike that of the ordinary penaeid prawns.
• That hardness held back its commercial use for decades, because no machine could peel it at industrial speed. Purpose-built machinery had to be patented in the 1970s.
• The flesh is similar in flavour and texture to lobster, hence its value on the table.
• It reaches 15 cm, but shallow-water individuals rarely exceed 5.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - articulated calcareous exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat and environment

Sand and shell-gravel bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Sicyonia brevirostris · ScienceDirect (Hughes 1989) · Science Advances, How colonial animals evolve · Wikipedia, Zooid