Clear Cleaner Shrimp

Urocaridella antonbruunii

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Family: Palaemonidae
Genus: Urocaridella
Species: Urocaridella antonbruunii

The clear cleaner shrimp (Urocaridella antonbruunii) is a transparent cleaner shrimp with red and white spots that gathers in groups to clean fish. Its almost invisible body makes the coloured spots seem to float in the water.

It grows to about 3 cm and lives under ledges, in caves and among coral, often in groups. The shrimps sway from side to side to advertise their cleaning service, then pick parasites and dead skin from visiting fish and sometimes from divers' hands.

In the Philippines clear cleaner shrimps are common at cleaning stations on reefs and wrecks, where they are fun to watch at work.

Photo: Gregor Bailar, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist