Very interesting pistol/goby interaction

[pache11]

For over three years I have small nano tanks with pistol shrimps and their respective gobies. One tank has a yasha and a randall's goby paired with their respective randall's pistols. I used to worry about feeding the pistols!

This is not a concern if they are paired with a goby. The goby will either feed the pistol exess food or now for the strange part, the pistol will stroke the goby if hungry and the goby will defecate and the pistol has a feast. The first time I saw this I laughed for almost an hour. I have tried to catch this behavior on video, but so far have been unsuccessful. The first time I saw this the pistol was gently stroking the goby's belly and I wondered what he was doing, the goby seemed to enjoy this and after about 30sec the goby defecated and the pistol was pulling the excrement right out of the goby's anus. The pistol will not starve as long as the goby is fed.

Hope to hear about any comments with other or the same strange behaviors with pistols.

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

This is weird! I don't know weather to laugh or barf. My pair built one of their tunnels along the glass of the tank so I could see what was going on in their tunnel. I saw some cool behaviors but I never witnessed the one you described. Thanks for sharing.

 

[J2T]

Funny I have witnessed this as well from my both my Randall's goby/tiger pistol and YWG/tiger combos. I haven't seen my YWG/Randal's pistol enough. Kind of gross but cool as well lol

 

[Cdiggy]

Roflmao!

 

[Calappidae]

:ape:

Quite odd.. A pistol shrimp will communicate with it's antennas, but I don't believe in that way. I would like to see a video but I'd be too disturbed to actually watch myself.

 

[robotman]

I have 2 pairs for 7 months now and ive never seen this, very interesting beceause I always wondered what my pistol ate, never worried though because I supplement nutramar ova to,.

 

[PeTe PoLyP]

My randalls didn't go hungry, and he hasn't been paired with a goby. The turbo snail graveyard just outside his burrow is proof enough for me. I bought a randalls goby yesterday so hopefully they pair up. I attempted to pair him with a ywg (he was paired with one when I bought him) and the night the goby found the burrow there were many snaps. Needless to say I haven't seen the goby since the day it found the burrow

 

[pache11]

Still haven't been able to catch them with the camera. I have seen it a couple of more times though!