As a seafood lover, I enjoy shrimp in all its forms – grilled fried sauteed, you name it. But despite eating my weight in these tasty crustaceans, I never stopped to think about shrimp anatomy and how their strange little curled up bodies actually function.
For instance, how many legs does a shrimp actually have? Those creepy-crawly things certainly can’t all be legs, can they? Time to get up close and personal with shrimp to uncover just how many appendages these creatures are working with
Shrimp Have 10 Legs – Just Like All Decapod Crustaceans
The first thing that may surprise some shrimp lovers is that shrimp have 10 legs. That’s right – those wiggly little things protruding from their bodies are each individually counted as a leg
Shrimp belong to a classification called decapod crustaceans, which are identified by their 10 legs. This includes other favorites like lobster, crab and crayfish.
So why does it appear like shrimp have way more than 10 legs? This is because the legs are spaced closely together and alternate long and short pairs. But rest assured all shrimp species have just the standard 10 crustacean legs.
The Front 3 Pairs Are For Walking
Shrimp leg anatomy can seem confusing at first. But each set of legs serves a specific purpose.
The front three pairs of legs, which are the longest, act as the shrimp’s main means of getting around and walking along the ocean floor. They can maneuver quite adeptly with these articulated front legs.
The Middle Pairs Grasp Food
The next set of legs are shorter and located in the middle section. These help the shrimp grasp food and pass it back towards the mouth.
They act sort of like tiny arms complete with little pincers on the end to pick up food. Without these “graspers”, shrimp wouldn’t be able to get nourishment into their mouths.
The Back Pairs Are Swimmers
The last two pairs of shrimp legs are the smallest. These are specifically designed to aid the shrimp in swimming and are called swimmerets.
They frantically paddle these back legs to jet quickly through the water away from predators or towards potential mates. The swimmerets are key for mobility and reproduction.
Leg Loss Isn’t Fatal
Shrimp rely heavily on all 10 of their legs for essential functions like walking, eating, and swimming. But if they happen to lose one, it’s not necessarily fatal.
Through the molting process, shrimp can actually regenerate lost legs over time. They are quite resourceful and can survive with 9 legs in the interim by relying more on their other legs and adapting.
Shrimp Use Legs For Defense and Communication
In addition to their core functions, shrimp legs play supplemental roles in self-defense and communication.
Some species have evolved spike-like adaptations on their legs to better ward off predators. And shrimp use leg gestures and motions to signal things like aggression or readiness to mate.
So their legs form an important part of overall shrimp body language and behavior.
Leg Size and Shape Varies Between Species
While all shrimp have 10 legs, there are over 2,000 species globally. Leg size, shape, and function can vary slightly between different types of shrimp.
Tiny brine shrimp have thinner, more fragile legs than larger shrimp species. And some shrimp that dig into sediment may have thicker or harder front legs.
But the fundamental anatomy remains 10 legs divided into 3 working pairs no matter what type of shrimp it is. This uniformity helps them thrive across diverse aquatic environments.
A Closer Look at Those Wiggly Appendages
Who would have thought that the key to unraveling the mystery of shrimp legs was so simple – they have 10 legs, just like all decapod crustaceans!
Next time you’re cracking open a succulent shrimp, take a closer peek at their anatomy. You’ll see each leg working in harmony to make the shrimp a successful survivor of the ocean.
Getting intimate with shrimp functionality gives me an even greater appreciation for these creatures. My hope is that you’ll also feel a newfound sense of wonder about shrimp after learning just how complex and capable they are beneath that hard little shell.
Frequency of entities:
shrimp: 54
legs: 55
10: 12
crustaceans: 5
decopod: 3
seafood: 1
appendages: 2
ocean floor: 1
front legs: 4
middle legs: 2
back legs: 3
graspers: 1
pincers: 1
swimmerets: 4
swimming: 3
mating: 1
regenerate: 1
molting: 1
self-defense: 1
communication: 1
body language: 1
behavior: 1
brine shrimp: 1
sediment: 1
aquatic environments: 1
decapod friends: 1
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This post originally appeared in an edition of What’s the Difference?, a weekly newsletter for the curious and confused by New York City writer Brette Warshaw. Eater will be publishing all editions that parse food-related differences, though those hardly scratch the surface of the world’s (and the newsletter’s) curiosities: Sign up to get What’s the Difference? in your inbox or catch up on the full archive.
There are few crustaceans as misunderstood as the shrimp and the prawn. Some people think they’re the same, while others think the only difference is size, and still others think they’re just called different things in different states, regions, or countries. And yet: all of these people are wrong! Shrimp and prawns are completely different creatures. The only thing they have in common is that they are both decapods, which means they have 10 legs that are attached to their bodies. Shrimp belong to the sub-order Pleocyemata, and prawns belong to the sub-order Dendrobranchiata. Let’s explore what this difference means, shall we?.
Gills: You may remember from ninth-grade biology that gills are built in a way that makes the most of their surface area. Shrimp have gills that look like plates and are arranged in flat, layered rows. Prawns, on the other hand, have gills that branch out, which is probably where the “branchiata” part of their name comes from.
Shrimp have claws on two sets of legs, and their front pincers are the biggest. There are claws on all three sets of prawn legs, and the back claws are bigger than the front ones.
Shape of the body: These decapods have four separate parts: the head, the thorax (the area behind the head), the abdomen (the “torso”), and the tail. In prawns, the head blends into the thorax, which then blends into the abdomen, like roof shingles. In shrimp, the thorax overlaps with both the head and the abdomen, like a cummerbund.
Prawns live in fresh water, while shrimp can be found in both fresh and salt water, though most species are found in salt water. If the shrimp comes from cold water, they are smaller. (I used to think the tiny shrimp in Scandinavian-style shrimp salads were creepy, but I no longer do.) ).
Size: Generally speaking, prawns are larger than shrimp — though this can differ depending on the species.
Taste: Anyone who tries to tell you that shrimp and prawns taste different is wrong. Some prawns are sweeter than shrimp, and some shrimp are sweeter than prawns. But this is only true for certain species, not for the sub-orders as a whole.
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