Alpheus randalli

Identification: up to about 3 cm. The background is white or transparent, with red bands and spots on the rostrum and both claws; the abdomen has further white and red bands, the uropods have red tips and the thoracic legs yellowish-green tips. The claws are very unequal: one is a massive snapping claw. The rostrum is about one and a half times as long as broad and the carapace is not laterally compressed.

In the wild it is recorded from the Marquesas Islands and the Indian Ocean, including the Seychelles; the species was described from an animal taken at 18 m (1 to 5 m according to SeaLifeBase). It lives on sandy or silty bottoms in a burrow it digs and shares with a goby of the genus Amblyeleotris, especially Amblyeleotris randalli. The burrow has one or more openings, which shift as the shrimp digs. By day the goby rests near an opening; the shrimp, which sees poorly, watches it and darts in as soon as the goby flees head first into the burrow. At night both retreat inside and seal the entrances.

Reproduction: the shrimp lives without another shrimp in its burrow; at breeding time it probably opens a passage to a neighbouring burrow occupied by a shrimp of the opposite sex. The female carries her eggs under her abdomen. Uncommon in the trade, the species is not evaluated by the IUCN and not listed by CITES.