Saw the coolest thing today...

[va reef walker]

Greetings all,

I was feeding my wrasse today, and noticed as it missed one or two pellets that our peppermint Shrimp would come out of his hole and snatch up the pellets. Now our peppermint Shrimp shares his hiding spot with our Serpent Star. As I watched, I noticed the Peppermint would come out of the hole grab a piece of food, eat it, come back out, grab a piece of food, and then give it to the Serpent Star. The first couple of times he even tugged at the stars arm so he'd lift it, and then the Shrimp would place the food under the arm for it to eat........ Anybody Else ever seen Inverts doing stuff like this?

 

[ErinCahir]

I have not... but that is awesome!

 

[Bifferwine]

That's really cool! Maybe he made a deal with the star. I feed you, you don't eat me, okay? :)

 

[the reef kid]

I know sometimes clowns will feed anemones, but I've never heard of a shrimp feeding a star...cool

 

[Charliegrs]

Maybe its a symbiotic relationship that these two species have in the wild, similar to the Goby/Pistol shrimp relationship. And maybe they do it in aquariums too.

 

[va reef walker]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that thought this was cool, interesting thing is, it's not a fluke, they did it again for the last feeding of the day, paying more attention showed that the pep would come out and get the food, then bring it back to they're hiding spot, and give it to the star, when the star lifted itself up, you could watch it "walk" the food down it's arms to a pile it was collecting of two or three pieces before lowering itself down onto it.

What was even more interesting is this time since we knew to watch for it, the pep sometimes would eat half and then give half to the star, or simply carry it to the entrance and throw it down to him...

I wondered myself if this wasn't some form of symbiotic relationship they have in the wild...

Or possibly as Bifferwine said, a deal to not get eaten...

Either way it was a great way to show our little one's that even animals can share...LOL

 

[chuysvt]

if you could do a small video..we would love it...i want to see too...plz....

 

[va reef walker]

chuysvt,

I've have been thinking of doing that very thing......I'll see over the next couple of days if I can work it out.

 

[Explicit]

I know that in my fresh water tanks I used to have inter species relation ships happen all the time. In my large African tank my frontosa would grab food from the top and swim over to the shell dweller and spit it into his home. I also had a leleupi who would cuddle with my peacock, very strange to watch lol. Id love to see this shrimp starfish combo though

 

[Marine88]

thats sweet

 

[sen5241b]

Very cool. Hobbyists have discoverd new species in their tanks! Maybe you are seeing marine creature behavior never witnessed before or at least very rare.

 

[slm32123]

you just said people have discovered new species... oh great here comes the starshrimp!!!!

 

[Waddi]

Haha thats pretty cool!! :D

 

[guarda]

+1 video! Would love to see this