Schlickkrebs
| Schlickkrebs | ||||||||||||
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Mud shrimp in the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Corophium volutator | ||||||||||||
| ( Pallas , 1766) |
The mud shrimp ( Corophium volutator ) is a small, six to fifteen millimeter long flea shrimp that lives in the upper layer of the mud in U-shaped corridors, especially on coasts . There are other species of the genus Corophium (z. B. the from Eastern Europe originating C. curvispinum ) as mud shrimp called.
nutrition
Mud crabs, like most amphipods, feed on plankton . At high tide, they generate a stream of water with their slightly elongated hind legs, with which they whirl the plankton into the living tube. At low tide they scrape the surface with the extended second pair of feelers. This creates star-shaped tracks around the entrance.
Way of life
The U-shaped, mucus-lined passageways are laid out at a depth of approx. Three centimeters in summer and up to 12 centimeters in winter (to protect against frost). They have a diameter of about two millimeters. They prefer stable, low-energy wadding.
When hiking, mud crabs leave narrow, zip-like tracks. Mud shrimp live a maximum of one year. During this time, the females usually hatch eggs three times in their brood sac on the belly. Mud shrimp are insensitive to the strong fluctuations in salinity in the Wadden Sea.
meaning
Due to their high population density of up to 100,000 animals per square meter, they are an important part of the food chain in the Wadden Sea, for example as the main food of the North Sea shrimp . It tolerates lower salt contents than, for example, the lugworm and can therefore also settle in estuaries and serve as food for birds and fish in which the lugworm no longer occurs. Through their excretions, they stabilize the mud flats in which they settle. It helps ventilate the mud flats by allowing water to flow through its tubes at high tide.
It is believed that the sound produced when the mud shrimp spread their antennae is partly responsible for the "crackling of the watts".
distribution
The species occurs in the coastal areas of parts of the Netherlands , Germany (Wadden Sea), England, France and in the southern Bay of Biscay .
Mud shrimp (although the closely related species Chelicorophium curvispinum , originally from the Black Sea ) have settled across the Volga , Dnepr , Danube and the Main-Danube Canal , which was completed in 1992, to the Rhine. At that time, they replaced the migrating mussels that had previously also immigrated and claimed the same habitat.
In Dutch the species is called slijkgarnaal , langspriet or wadkreeftje .
Taxonomy
Synonyms of the kind are:
- Corophium grossipes ( Templeton , 1836)
- Corophium longicorne Latreille , 1806
Web links
- Pellworm North Sea Wadden Sea - Schlickkrebs (with picture)
- Master of the Mudflats - detailed description and sketches (English)
- ERMS taxon details (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Karl-Heinz van Bernem: Distribution of Macrofaune species in the Wadden Sea . In: Federal Environment Agency and national park administrations of Lower Saxony Wadden Sea / Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea (ed.): Wadden Sea Environment Atlas . Vol. 1: North Frisian and Dithmarsches Wadden Sea . Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1998/1999, ISBN 3-8001-3491-8 , pp. 94-95.
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated February 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.marbef.org/data/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=102101
- ↑ Angela Altmaier: Neophytes and Neozoa on and in flowing waters. Retrieved December 5, 2013 .
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
