''Penaeus monodon'', commonly known as the giant tiger prawn, Asian tiger shrimp, black tiger shrimp, and other names, is a marine

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

that is widely reared for food. Tiger Prawns @ U

Taxonomy

''Penaeus monodon'' was first described by

Johan Christian Fabricius Johan Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, and is cons ...

in 1798. That name was overlooked for a long time, until 1949 when

Lipke Holthuis Lipke Bijdeley Holthuis (21 April 1921 – 7 March 2008) was a Dutch crustacean, carcinologist, considered one of the "undisputed greats" of carcinology, and "the greatest carcinologist of our time". Holthuis was born in Probolinggo, East Java a ...

clarified to which species it referred. Holthuis also showed that ''P. monodon'' had to be the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of the genus ''

Penaeus ''Penaeus'' is a genus of prawns, including the giant tiger prawn (''P. monodon''), the most important species of farmed crustacean worldwide. The genus has been reorganised following a proposition of Pérez Farfante and Kensley based on morph ...

''.

Description

Females can reach about long, but are typically long and weigh ; males are slightly smaller at long and weighing . The carapace and abdomen are transversely banded with alternative red and white. The antennae are grayish brown. Brown pereiopods and pleopods are present with fringing setae in red.

Distribution

Its natural distribution is the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, ranging from the eastern coast of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

, as far as

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

, the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is an

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

in the northern waters of the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

and the Atlantic Ocean off the Southern U.S.

Invasive species

The first occurrence of ''P. monodon'' in the U.S. was in November 1988. Close to 300 shrimp were captured off the Southeastern shore after an accidental release from an aquaculture facility. This species can now be caught in waters from Texas to North Carolina. Although ''P. monodon'' has been an invasive species for many years, it has yet to grow large established populations.Knott, D.M., P.L. Fuller, A.J. Benson, and M.E. Neilson, 2019, ''Penaeus monodon'': U.S. Geological Survey, Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL Escapes in other parts of the world, though, have led to established ''P. monodon'' populations, such as off West Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean.

Habitat

''P. monodon'' is suited to inhabit a multitude of environments.Motoh, H. (1985). Biology and ecology of Penaeus monodon. In Taki Y., Primavera J. H. and Llobrera J. A. (Eds.). Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Culture of Penaeid Prawns/Shrimps, 4-7 December 1984, Iloilo City, Philippines (pp. 27-36). Iloilo City, Philippines: Aquaculture Department, Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center. They mainly occur in Southeastern Asia, but are widely found. Juveniles of ''P. monodon'' are generally found in sandy estuaries and mangroves, and upon adulthood, they move to deeper waters (0- 110 meters) and live on muddy or rocky bottoms.FAO-FIRA, 2010. "Giant Tiger Prawn Home" (On-line). Accessed April 15, 2019 at http://affris.org/giant_tiger_prawn/overview.php The ''P. monodon'' has shown to be nocturnal in the wild, burrowing into substrate during the day, and coming out at night to feed.Cultured Aquatic Species Information Programme. Penaeus monodon. Cultured Aquatic Species Information Programme. Text by Kongkeo, H. In: ''FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department'' nline Rome. Updated 29 July 2005. ited 15 April 2019 ''P. monodon'' typically feed on

detritus In biology, detritus () is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts commun ...

polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class (biology), class of generally marine invertebrate, marine annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that ...

worms,

mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

, and small crustaceans. They feed on algae, as well. Due to their nutrient-rich diet, these shrimp are unable to consume phytoplankton because of their feeding appendages, but they are able to consume senescent phytoplankton. They also commence mating at night, and can produce around 800,000 eggs.

Aquaculture

''P. monodon'' is the second-most widely cultured prawn species in the world, after only

whiteleg shrimp Whiteleg shrimp (''Litopenaeus vannamei'', synonym ''Penaeus vannamei''), also known as Pacific white shrimp or King prawn, is a species of prawn of the eastern Pacific Ocean commonly caught or farmed for food. Description ''L. vannamei'' grows ...

, ''Litopenaeus vannamei''. In 2009, 770,000

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s were produced, with a total value of

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

3,650,000,000. ''P. monodon'' makes up nearly 50% of cultured shrimp alone. The prawn is popular to culture because of its tolerance to salinity and very quick growth rate. However, they are very vulnerable to fungal, viral, and bacterial infections. Diseases such as white spot disease and

yellowhead disease Yellowhead disease (YHD) is a viral infection of shrimp and prawn, in particular of the giant tiger prawn (''Penaeus monodon''), one of the two major species of farmed shrimp. The disease is caused by the ''Yellow head virus'' (YHV), a positive- ...

have led to a great economic impact in shrimp industries around the globe. They can receive transmitted diseases from other crustaceans such as the Australian red claw crayfish (''Cherax quadricarinatus''), which is susceptible to yellowhead disease and has shown to transmit it to ''P. monodon'' in Thailand. Since black tiger shrimp are susceptible to many diseases, this engenders economic constraints towards the black tiger shrimp food industry in Australia, which is farm-raised. To confront such challenges, attempts have been made to selectively breed specific pathogen-resistant lines of black tiger shrimp. ''P. monodon'' has been farmed throughout the world, including areas such as West Africa, Hawaii, Tahiti, and England. For optimal growth, ''P. monodon'' is raised in waters between 28 and 33°C. Characteristically for the ''Penaeus'' genus, ''P. monodon'' has a natural ability to survive and grow in a wide range of salinity, though its optimal salinity is around 15-25 ppt. While in a farm setting, the shrimp are typically fed a compound diet, which is produced in dried pellets. By mixing the diet to have compound feeds and fresh feed, ''P. monodon'' was shown to have better reproductive performance.

Sustainable consumption

In 2010,

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

added ''P. monodon'' to its seafood red list – "a list of fish that are commonly sold in supermarkets around the world, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries". The reasons given by Greenpeace were "destruction of vast areas of mangroves in several countries, overfishing of juvenile shrimp from the wild to supply farms, and significant human-rights abuses".

Basic research

In an effort to understand whether

DNA repair DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA dam ...

processes can protect

s against infection, basic research was conducted to elucidate the repair mechanisms used by ''P. monodon''. Repair of DNA double-strand breaks was found to be predominantly carried out by accurate

homologous recombination Homologous recombination is a type of genetic recombination in which genetic information is exchanged between two similar or identical molecules of double-stranded or single-stranded nucleic acids (usually DNA as in cellular organisms but may ...

al repair. Another, less accurate process,

microhomology-mediated end joining Microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ), also known as alternative nonhomologous end-joining (Alt-NHEJ) is one of the pathways for repairing double-strand breaks in DNA. As reviewed by McVey and Lee, the foremost distinguishing property of MMEJ ...

, is also used to repair such breaks.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q578204 Penaeidae Edible crustaceans Commercial crustaceans Crustaceans described in 1798 Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius