Callianassa filholi

Taxobox
name = "Callianassa filholi"
status =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
subphylum = Crustacea
classis = Malacostraca
ordo = Decapoda
subordo = Pleocyemata
infraordo = Thalassinidea
familia = Callianassidae
genus = "Callianassa"
species = "C. filholi"
binomial = "Callianassa filholi"
binomial_authority = (Milne-Edwards, 1878)

"Callianassa filholi" is a ghost shrimp of the family Callianassidae, endemic to New Zealand, in mudflats and muddy sand beaches at low tide level.

"Callianassa filholi" lives in a permanent burrow including turning chambers, side rooms for storing feces and pieces of shell, with multiple entrances and an exit at the top of a low mound. A male and a female normally occupy a burrow. The large hairy first legs and the smaller second pair form a sieve used to strain detritus food from the water current created by the swimming limbs on the underside of the abdomen. When feeding the shrimp moves close to one of the entrances.

The nippers have the shape normal for a crab or shrimp and in the male one of them (right or left) is very large. The female has an enlarged second abdominal segment.

Digging is done with the first, second and third pairs of walking limbs and the spoil is carried to an entrance held in the last pair of mouth appendages.

Adult length is up to 60 mm. They are transparent and colourless, except for tinges of vermilion.

References

* Miller M & Batt G, "Reef and Beach Life of New Zealand", William Collins (New Zealand) Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1973