A “killer” shrimp which makes meals out of young fish, insect larva, and the shrimp native to the area has been discovered at two different locations in Wales, comments the Environment Agency.

These sneaky little invaders, known in scientific circles as Dikerogammarus villosus, actually changes the ecology of the environments that it takes over, and can even cause mass die offs and extinctions.

The invader was discovered in the UK at reservoir in Cambridgeshire this past September.

Environment Agency Wales has commented that it has just confirmed the presence at Cardiff Bay and Eglwys Nunyd Reservoir in Port Talbot. It is still unknown as to how the interloper got there.

You see, this “killer” shrimp originally hails from a region between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, however it has spread over most of Western Europe across the last decade.

This sneaky invader can be as tiny as 3 millimeters, but can grow as large as 30 millimeters long, making it much bigger than the freshwater shrimp native to the area.

Biologists have dubbed this tiny invader a killer, as it mainly kills more than its fill, and leaves its meals largely uneaten.

This invader is really causing some alarm, and has led to the Welsh Assembly Government setting up an all-wales group to help and figure out how to contain problem, so that it doesn’t spread any further.

Environment Agency Wales director Chris Mills commented:

“We will continue with our monitoring work across Wales to identify any other water recreation spots where they could be to see how widespread the problem has become.”

UK

Hide the fry, make sure they are tucked away good and tight. The boogie man of shrimp has come to town. This time it has selected Britain.

Britain appears to be under siege from a battalion of what appear to be killer shrimp.

This hungry invader, known as Dikerogammarus villosus, has been found by fishermen at Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire.

These shrimp, which are much larger than the shrimp native to Britain, come from Eastern Europe but have been steadily making their way westward, presumably looking for the buffet, for the past 10 years.

These invaders are aggressive hunters, and are feeding on the native freshwater shrimp, damselflies, small fish and water boatmen, and are poised to turn the local food chain on its head.

Often the shrimp kill just for the sport of it, and can rapidly take over lakes and rvers.

They aren’t a danger to local drinking water supplies, however fishermen have been warned to double check for the sneaky buggers so as to not aid in their spreading.

Researchers are taking the threat very seriously, and are now testing the water to see how widespread the problem is, and how to put a clamp on it.

Seems to me a lot of invasive species are making their ways into places they shouldn’t.. Global Warming? Or something more sinister? Either way, looks like Britain might be poised for a huge shrimp fry.

Above you can see a fascinating video of squat Urchin shrimp and below you find some basic information about this tiny shrimp.

The squat Urchin shrimp, known in scientific circles as Gnathophylloides mineri, is quite a fascinating invertebrate that many aquarists would often look over, or even never see.

This fascinating little creature is only milometers in length, and it survives in its own little world, not seeming to care about how the rest of the Sea Urchins live. These Sea Urchins actually live ON TOP of other Sea Urchins!

The Squat Urchin Shrimp is incredibly tiny, often never reaching more than 6mm in length, and it often orients itself parallel with their hosts spines, which not only protects it from becoming lunch for some other sea critter, but also makes it nigh on impossible to see, some would even say it’s effectively invisible to the naked eye. Colonies of these little guys often have numbers ranging from a few to a half dozen will share the same host Sea Urchin. Not only does it seek protection from its hosts spines, it actually feeds on them, proving once again just how successful this tiny creature is at surviving. This is a rather odd kind of parasitism, as it does not have any ill effects for the host.

The Squat Urchin Shrimp also will take every chance they get to feed upon the detritus that the host sea urchin picks up off the ocean floor on it’s travels.

Taiwan plans to set up an aquarium fish R&D and export centre in 2011 in an effort of becoming Asia’s main aquarium fish exporter, a Council of Agriculture (COA) official said Wednesday.

Construction is scheduled to commence next year in the Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park (PABP).

Right now, the yearly Taiwanese export of aquarium fish is no larger than 3 million USD, while Singapore has an annual export valued well above 60 million USD.

Chen Chien-pin, head of the preparatory office of the PABP, predicts that the value of the Taiwanese aquarium fish export will exceed that of Singapore when the centre as been in operation for five years.

The estimated price tag for the new facility is 1.19 billion New Taiwan Dollars, which is roughly equivalent of 37 million USD.

A six-month long investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) has led to the arrest of seven adults and one juvenile in Tampa. The arrested persons are believed to have been involved in various illegal activates concerning marine life, including catching protected sharks, sea horses, peppermint shrimp and bay scallops in Floridian waters, and exporting illegally obtained marine life to Europe. They are also suspected of having sold bait fish and bait shrimp as food for human consumption.

According to the FWC, the ring is believed to have operated for at least five years before attracting the attention of FWC. The ring lost a lot of animals due to poor maintenance, but the FWC still believes the group managed to sell $600,000 worth of peppermint shrimp alone.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission came into existence on July 1, 1999. The Investigations Section of the commission conducts both overt (uniform) and covert (plainclothes) investigations, and one of their tasks is to target hard-core commercial violators by conducting long-term undercover investigations. In 2003, the Investigations Section made 554 arrests/warnings and seized 130 illegally possessed specimens of fish and wildlife including a cougar, tigers, leopards, primates, exotic deer, venomous reptiles, protected birds and exotic aquatic species.