Brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus)
Introduction: Is a species of marine penaeid shrimps which has an important commercial species in the USA. The species has several common names such as northern brown shrimp; golden shrimp, red shrimp or red tail shrimp.
Distribution and habitats: The brown shrimp are found along the USA Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Texas, and along the Atlantic coast of Mexico from Tamaulipas to Campeche and now been confirmed to occur in the Mediterranean, probably introduced in ship's ballast water.
The species may occur at a wide range of water depths from as shallow as 4 meters to as deep as 160 meters. However, their highest densities occur at depths between 27 – 54 m and rarely observed at depths exceeding
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Description: The brown shrimp exhibits sexual dimorphism in regard to growth whereas females grow larger than males. Individual specimens may attain a total length of up to 20 cm for male and 24 cm for female. The antennae of the species are significantly longer than body length.
The rostrum is prominent and slightly upturned with 5-10 sharp teeth on the upper edge.
The Chromatophores give the animal a brown to olive-green appearance. The species is an active swimmer and burrower. Also, it is more active at night in open waters than it is during the daylight hours.
The first 3 pairs of walking legs are chelate that in addition to its walking function, they help the animals to catch their food as well as in offending and defending.
The two rounded, reddish-brown uropods are connected to the paddle-like telson. Together, the uropods and telson form a fan-shaped tail. The shrimp locomotion is performed by the telson and uropods. Like in almost all shrimp species, the uropods steer the shrimp in during swimming and also allow the shrimp perform a rapid backward swimming during emergencies such as when escaping from possible