Palaemon varians
Palaemon varians, known as the common ditch shrimp, river shrimp or Atlantic ditch shrimp, is a shrimp found from the Baltic Sea and the British Isles to the western Mediterranean Sea.[1] It reaches up to 5 cm (2.0 in) in length and is never found in fully marine conditions, instead living in brackish water.[1]
| Palaemon varians | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Infraorder: | Caridea |
| Family: | Palaemonidae |
| Genus: | Palaemon |
| Species: | P. varians |
| Binomial name | |
| Palaemon varians (Leach, 1814) | |
In the aquarium
Often sold by many aquarium retailers as feeder shrimp, river shrimp or grass shrimp and intended as live food for predatory aquarium life. However due to their high tolerance of varying salinity and temperature levels they can survive in marine, brackish or freshwater conditions in temperatures ranging from 1 °C to 30 °C for prolonged periods of time.[2][3] They will feed on any leftover fish food, algae or plant life and are generally peaceful by nature when mixed with similar sized aquarium life.
References
- Matthijs van Couwelaar. Palaemonetes varians. ISBN 90-75000-56-1. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - "Grass shrimp or Atlantic ditch shrimp ,Palaemonetes varians".
- Oliphant, Andrew; Thatje, Sven; Brown, Alastair; Morini, Marina; Ravaux, Juliette; Shillito, Bruce (2011). "Pressure tolerance of the shallow-water caridean shrimp Palaemonetes varians across its thermal tolerance window". Journal of Experimental Biology. 214 (7): 1109–1117. doi:10.1242/jeb.048058. PMID 21389195. S2CID 5321386.