Scary upside-down food-hoarding spiky shrimp OF DOOM discovered.

[theweaselking]

"This is a large, predatory fairy shrimp. This guy is about three inches long. That is huge for a fairy shrimp," biologist Dana Quinney said Tuesday during a press conference announcing the discovery.

The new species has several spines on its front legs, and each spine is covered with several more, even smaller spines. The belly of the shrimp is covered with patches of Velcro-like spikes, enabling it to stick to and store up to four smaller fairy shrimp of different species - its prey. The new species also have a unique long, tapered and forked tail and the males have much longer antennas than other fairy shrimp.

It's no wonder that the animals were only recently discovered, Quinney said. They prefer to live in the opaque, brown pools known as playas that only occur during good water years.

Like other fairy shrimp, the animals swim upside down, with their legs toward the water's surface.

"They swim all the time unless it's really cold and they capture and kill smaller fairy shrimp. They sweep the water with these big tail segments and if they contact a prey then they go for it," she said.

The shrimp have apparently evolved ways to deal with a scarce food source. When the playas begin to run out of the tinier shrimp, they catch and store their prey for future eating.

"They grab them, bite them - probably don't kill them but reduce the activity level - and clamp them to the body with these little flaps," Quinney said.

If another tiny shrimp is found, the bigger animal moves the first catch further down its abdomen, making room to save the second catch. The big shrimp can hang onto as many as four of the smaller victims as needed.

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

Those look like the face-sucking thing from Alien.