Visiting the cleaners

  

Looking around in the low intertidal zone in Monterey County this week, I peeked over a rock to see these striking striped shrimp.  Beautiful!

I kept scanning and found a handful of these shrimp in a tidepool.  This was my first view (below).  [Don't miss the smaller individual at the bottom.]

 

 

I'm not as familiar with many invertebrates that are more common in Southern California, but Eric helped me identify these as Red Rock Shrimp (Lysmata californica).  Typically they are found south of Point Conception, but there are recent records of them from San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Pillar Point (between 2015-2021).  And there is an older record from Coos Bay, OR, from 1983 after a significant El Niño event.

These are fairly large shrimp — the largest individual I saw was ~7 cm (~3 inches) long.  They have a grayish translucent background color and bold red striping.  Another notable feature is the extremely long antennae.

 

 

An intriguing aspect of Red Rock Shrimp — they're cleaner shrimp!  Which means that they are often found in large aggregations and are known to have a mutualistic relationship with various fish and invertebrates that involves "cleaning" — the shrimp remove parasites and other material from their "clients" including moray eels, Garibaldi, and spiny lobster.

 

 

 

Most of the other species in this genus of cleaner shrimp (Lysmata spp.) are tropical.  I'm not sure how common Red Rock Shrimp are north of Point Conception right now, but if you happen to see one north of Santa Barbara it would be worth reporting your observation.  

Two more images for the record:

 

 

 

 

 

I felt fortunate to catch a glimpse of these beautiful shrimp and couldn't help wondering which animals might be stopping by next to visit the cleaners.