‘Unique’ creature covered in polka dots found off Florida. Check out the new species
While scuba diving off the Atlantic coast of southern Florida, one diver noticed something “conspicuous” crawling around the rocks.
The tiny critter looked like it stepped out of a Yayoi Kusama art piece, nearly translucent but covered in ruby red polka dots.
The “enthusiastic” diver and photographer, Ariane Dimitris, gathered three of the animals and brought them to the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
There, researchers discovered that it was not just a rare shrimp – but an entirely new species.
The researchers described the shrimp as a “unique” species of coral shrimp, part of the animal genus Microprosthema, in a June 2 study published in Zootaxa.
Microprosthema dimitrisorum, as they are now named, are “translucent white, with scattered, bright ruby-red, rounded dots (red on white polka dots) or more irregularly shaped patches,” the study authors said.
The distinct coloring “immediately separates,” the shrimp from other known species, but the shrimp also has morphological differences to other shrimp in the genus.
Microprosthema dimitrisorum has a much narrower head or beak, and its spines protrude from its body in a new arrangement.
Dimitris found the shrimp off the coast of Pompano Beach, but researchers later found they live in multiple coastal communities north of Miami, according to the study.
The researchers were also able to go through photographic records and found the species had been spotted before in Roatan, Honduras, almost 800 miles away.
Most of the shrimp species in the Microprosthema genus live on coral and rocky reefs and reef flats, typically at depths shallower than 60 feet, the study authors said.
This story was originally published June 14, 2023 at 3:45 PM with the headline "‘Unique’ creature covered in polka dots found off Florida. Check out the new species."
