White Pearl/Snowball shrimp taxonomy

Abaddon

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Hi,
I've seen White Pearl/Snowball shrimp advertised as both N. davidii and N. palmata, and I must say I'm a bit confused... from what I understand Snowballs were selectively bred from a different species then RCS (palmata vs davidii), together with Blue Pearls and Amber Pearls. I just got some Snowballs (sold as N. palmata) and I'm a bit worried about potential crossbreeding if I ever wanted to add fresh blood and got davidiis by mistake (or the other way round, if I was sold davidiis by mistake and then end up topping them up with palmatas...). I know that species from the same genus can interbreed and produce fertile offpsring, and I'd hate to see my gorgeous white shrimps lose their colouration or revert to a drab wild type :/ So I guess my question is: are there 2 species with identical white morphs, or is every white Neo shrimp always an N. palmata, and the White Pearl davidiis are all mislabeled? I've attached photos of mine just for reference.
Thanks in advance guys!
 

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Interbreeding is highly improbable and would result in failure... If you have N. palmata, it's a completely different lineage.

Sites that labels "White Pearls" as N. davidii. Are inaccurate.
 
Interbreeding is highly improbable and would result in failure...
That's good to hear! I was always under the impression that closely related species (esp. in the same genus) could hybridize and produce viable offspring. If that's not the case then it certainly puts my mind at ease ;)
Sites that labels "White Pearls" as N. davidii. Are inaccurate.
That was my suspicion as well. But since I'm no expert in shrimp, I thought there might be some other white variety of N.davidii that I simply wasn't aware of. Again, glad to hear that's not the case :)

:thanks:
 

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