I went for a dive back in February at Fly Point (Nelson Bay, Australia). Much of it was fairly murky and uneventful, but (as I tell myself over and over): you never know what you’ll see.
As I was beginning the last stages of the dive over on the west of the site, I came across a bowl-like orange sponge oriented horizontally. Two of the most beautiful banded shrimp were sitting in the bowl, facing out. Both looked small. Young? They were lively and seemed interested in everything. One kept doing a little clap of his big claws. Clapped his hands. I don’t know if the other did that, and I don’t think I’ve seen it before.
One (the applauder) was more forward than the other, but both were willing to come a fair way forward. I took off my glove and they felt my fingers, perhaps the most that any shrimp have felt my fingers (at least for a long time).
Here they are coming forward to look at me:
Here is one of those sudden claps (video screenshot):
They had a vivacious, curious, “here we are in this miracle of living existence” feel about them. Completely beautiful and so full of curiosity and life.
I stayed there as my tank ran down, and saying goodbye to them was genuinely hard. They watched me go.
As Ted Hughes wrote in a poem about some birds: ‘Paid up/Alert/Conscience perfect’.
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Notes: They are hard animals to photograph, as the antennae are usually moving, they like dark-ish corners, and – this being the point of the antennae – they occupy a lot of space, fore to aft. So camera settings are a problem, especially as I don’t like to hit them with additional light. (All these photos use natural light). Here I’ve chosen photos that have blur problems in some cases because the pose of the animals, and their behavior, are captured better than in others.
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