Shrimp
Lysmata amboinensis
Lysmata amboinensis is an omnivorous shrimp better known as the Pacific cleaner shrimp. It earns the name because much of its diet consists of parasites and dead tissue picked from fish. A natural part of the coral reef ecosystem, it occurs widely across the tropics, typically at depths of 5 to 40 m (16 to 131 ft).
Family
Hippolytidae
Avg Size
4-6 cm
Habitat
It is native to tropical coral reefs worldwide, including the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific. Living at depths of 5 to 40 m (16 to 131 ft), it is usually found in caves or along reef ledges.
Behaviour
Rather than forming large groups, these shrimp tend to live in pairs, and although omnivorous they are thought to draw much of their nourishment from cleaning parasites and dead tissue off fish. Mating, observed in captivity, involves little ceremony: a pair of fully mature hermaphrodites stagger their moults, and shortly after one moults, the partner acting as male follows the one acting as female, which then broods the fertilised eggs; when the next moult comes, the roles, and thus the apparent sexes, switch.
