I went out to a local creek today amd after sitting still for quite some time with just our feet in the water the resident Macrobrachium species of shrimp came out and started cleaning our feet.
At one point I had 6 shrimp on my feet with more honing in, until a much larger near adult shrimp also decided I might be tasty. It had much bigger nippers (thankfully not the largest macrobrachium I have seen in the area, but still big enough), and when it finally decided to jump on my foot it lunged like an attacking spider to scatter its smaller relations and took up position like a scorpian before proceding to start picking away at my foot.
Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of this big guy, I had left my camera on the other bank of the creek and when I did scare the shrimp to get my camera, all the photos of the returning shrimp had too much glare from the still rising sun.
But I did get this photo with on shrimp on my husbands foot.....apparently he didn't smell as tasty to them
.
On his toe, the dark particles on his foot is the algea we had stired up on the rocks, man those rocks are slippery.
Also a view of the creek, it has not had decent rain for a few months, so its bearly a trickle.
And an off shoot of the creek that would normally have more water in it.
And heading into the creek through the sate pine plantation
Sadly only about 5 rainbow fish showed up, and where very timid, a different creek I used to go to it was nothing to be mobbed by Fly specked hardyheads and rainbowfish. Hundreds of the macrobrachium shrimp where out and about, but also sadly the fresh water gobies I most wanted to find stayed well hidden. And since the creek is barely running I have no clue where the resident riffle shrimp may have gone
.
At one point I had 6 shrimp on my feet with more honing in, until a much larger near adult shrimp also decided I might be tasty. It had much bigger nippers (thankfully not the largest macrobrachium I have seen in the area, but still big enough), and when it finally decided to jump on my foot it lunged like an attacking spider to scatter its smaller relations and took up position like a scorpian before proceding to start picking away at my foot.
Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of this big guy, I had left my camera on the other bank of the creek and when I did scare the shrimp to get my camera, all the photos of the returning shrimp had too much glare from the still rising sun.
But I did get this photo with on shrimp on my husbands foot.....apparently he didn't smell as tasty to them
On his toe, the dark particles on his foot is the algea we had stired up on the rocks, man those rocks are slippery.
Also a view of the creek, it has not had decent rain for a few months, so its bearly a trickle.
And an off shoot of the creek that would normally have more water in it.
And heading into the creek through the sate pine plantation
Sadly only about 5 rainbow fish showed up, and where very timid, a different creek I used to go to it was nothing to be mobbed by Fly specked hardyheads and rainbowfish. Hundreds of the macrobrachium shrimp where out and about, but also sadly the fresh water gobies I most wanted to find stayed well hidden. And since the creek is barely running I have no clue where the resident riffle shrimp may have gone
