Prawns

All 2 species of prawns on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 77 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• Its large-scale farming drove the clearance of enormous areas of mangrove in South-East Asia, an environmental impact that has marked the history of aquaculture.

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• It has established itself as an invader in the western Atlantic, from the United States to Brazil, after escapes from farms.

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• A single female can release close to a million eggs in one spawning.

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• The males form three castes of different appearance and behaviour: the dominant blue-clawed males, the orange-clawed males and the small transparent ones, and an individual can change caste over its life.

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• Its larvae die in pure fresh water: they need salinity to complete their metamorphosis, something that held back its farming for decades until it was discovered in the 1960s.

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• Its males come in three distinct morphotypes that coexist in the same population, and they are not age stages but alternative strategies.

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Ecosystems