Pandalus montagui

Pandalus montagui
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Crustacea
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Infraorder:	Caridea
Family:	Pandalidae
Genus:	Pandalus
Species:	P. montagui
Binomial name
Pandalus montagui Leach, 1814

Pandalus montagui is a species of cold-water shrimp in the family Pandalidae. It is the type species of the genus Pandalus and is variously known as the pink shrimp, Aesop shrimp and Aesop prawn.

Pandalus montagui is a translucent, pinkish shrimp, generally growing to about 5 cm (2.0 in) long. Its colour is due to a number of red chromatophores and the few short red streaks running obliquely on the carapace. The rostrum is long, up-curved and divided at the tip with 10–12 teeth on its posterior dorsal edge. A spine is found under the eye on the carapace. The first antenna divides into two parts and the second is very long, exceeding the length of the body and being banded in pale and dark brown. This shrimp can be distinguished from the rather similar P. tridens by having a shorter rostrum and longer dactyls (claws) on the third and fourth pereopods (walking limbs).

Pandalus montagui has a boreo-arctic distribution. Its range extends from Greenland and Iceland, the Arctic Ocean, and the northern Atlantic Ocean, south to Rhode Island and the British Isles. It prefers hard substrates, but can be found on rock, gravel, sand, and mud. It is most common at depths between 20 and 100 m (66 and 328 ft), but sometimes occurs near low-water mark or at depths to 700 m (2,300 ft).

P. montagui is an omnivore, predator, and scavenger. Its diet consists mainly of small crustaceans such as copepods, hydroids, and polychaete worms. Off the Labrador coast, a large daily vertical migration was found, with the shrimp being benthic in the daytime and pelagic at night.

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Wikipedia