Lepidophthalmus turneranus
Lepidophthalmus turneranus | |
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Species: | L. turneranus
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Binomial name | |
Lepidophthalmus turneranus (White, 1861)
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Lepidophthalmus turneranus (formerly Callianassa turnerana), the Cameroon ghost shrimp, is a species of "ghost shrimp" or "mud lobster" that lives off the coast of West Africa. It occasionally erupts into dense swarms, one of which resulted in the naming of the country Cameroon.
Distribution
Lepidophthalmus turneranus is found in
Description
Adults reach a total length of 5.5–14.5 centimetres (2.2–5.7 in).
Ecology and behaviour
Lepidophthalmus turneranus lives in burrows in mud. Every three to five years, vast swarms form in estuaries,[1] and copulation occurs outside the burrow.[3] When James Aspinall Turner presented the first specimens to the British Museum, he noted that:[4]
... this long-bodied Crustacean appears periodically in the river in prodigious numbers, which disappear in the course of ten days or a fortnight. The natives are very fond of them, as they are delicious eating; and as soon as they make their appearance in the river, the men here leave their usual pursuits to catch them.
Taxonomic history
The Cameroon ghost shrimp was
Cameroon
L. turneranus is "probably the only crustacean ... for which a country is named".[1] When the Portuguese discovered the Wouri River in the 15th century, they witnessed a swarm of L. turneranus, and therefore named the river Rio dos Camarões ("river of the shrimp"). That name was anglicised to "Cameroons River", which came to be used for the whole country, and borrowed into other languages (including the French Cameroun, the German Kamerun and the Dutch Kameroen).[1]
References
- ^ ISBN 92-5-103027-8.
- ^ . 326: 3–152.
- .
- ^ Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1861: 42–44.