Lobster Fact Blog

This is a very peculiar story. Although you have male and female shrimp, some male shrimp may become female shrimp in the course of their life (after 2 years or so). If this does not sound as a complicated business, the next link in the chain will. Shrimp can only mate with each other when the female has just molted (just as is the case with crabs and lobsters). Female shrimp can mate and deposit eggs up to three times per year. Usually it is once in the spring, once in the summer and once in the middle of winter. The older and larger the female shrimp is, the more eggs she can lay. In her third year, she can often lay more than 25,000 eggs. The fertilized eggs are attached to hairy attachments that the female has under her tail with a substance similar to glue. She does this to protect the eggs (larval stage of shrimp) from being eaten by other shrimp or other sea creatures. The female will carry all the eggs with her during incubation. The length of the incubation period depends on how warm the water is. In the summer, the shrimp often hatch after 4 weeks but, in the winter, it can take up to 3 months. If you catch a shrimp with eggs, you can easily see whether the eggs are just about to hatch, they will be nearly black (the lighter the color, the longer it will take). When a shrimp leaves the egg, it looks quite different and, during the first few months of its life, it will float around in the water. Only when they are about a centimeter in size will they start living on the bottom of the sea.

This is a species of shrimp called Mantis shrimp. As you can see, she is carrying thousands of eggs on the underside of her tail.