Size of Peacock Mantis? Help, please!

[Gonodactylus]

The most commonly imported Indo-Pacific stomatopod is Odontodactylus scyllarus, also known as a peacock or clown mantis shrimp. This species occurs from the central Pacific to East Africa and from South Africa and New South Wales to Japan. It is imported into the U.S primarily from Indonesia and the Philippines. Years ago, they also came from Sri Lanka and Okinawa. I'm trying to track the size of animals being imported - the largest and smallest. The recorded maximum size for this species is 171 mm and I have seen one 180 mm animal. However, most of the animals for sale, and those that I see in the field, are 90 - 140 mm total length. If you have seen an animal larger than 170 mm, I would appreciate data on its size and sex. I hear lots of reports of people with 7 or 8 inch peacock mantis, but I doubt that they have been measured.

I measure stomatopods by laying them out on a towel and using a ruler to measure from the tip of the telson to the tip of the eyes. I don't include the antennules. (Watch your fingers!) A less accurate, but acceptable way to measure them is to place a ruler along the side of an aquarium when the animals is standing in a normal posture against the wall. Remember, 1 inch equals 25.4 mm so the largest Odontodactylus recorded was just under 7 inches.

I would also like information on how small these animals are when imported, I caught one with full coloration that was about 40 mm last week, but that is about as small as I have seen them.

Thanks for the help.

Roy

 

[RogueCorps]

Hi Dr. Roy,

We bought our female O. S. at a San Francisco LFS in the Fall of 2002 at 3.5 inches or 89mm, measured with a ruler against the aquarium telson to the eyes. I haven't taken a close measurement recently but I'd estimate she's about 120mm now.

-R

 

[jjrock]

About time you are giving us the opportunity to help you. I have three of these beasties now, all OS., about whom I have spoken often (Ghengis-Prawn the biggest, Kiezer Soze the middle, and Leviathan the smallest).

I will get a measurement on them tomorrow and send in the specs. Ghengis is getting rather large now, a rough estimate being between 5 and 6 inches ...

More specifics to follow!

JJ.