CAPE TOWN: The University of Cape Town said on Friday a little shrimp equipped with large candy stripe eyes to region off predators has been discovered in South African waters.
Griffiths said It’s amazing that we’re still finding so many new species in heavily dived waters such as False Bay, right on our doorstep. 10 to 15 mm-long crustacean has been christened the “star-gazer mysid” as its eyes seem to gaze everlastingly upwards. Similar to insect eyes, they each look in a different way.
The university said that vivid circled patterns are thought to be there to make the eyes appear to belong to a much bigger creature, and hence to scare off predators.
The underwater photographer who discovered it, officially named Mysidopsis Zsilaveczi after Guido Zsilavecz, The University’s senior marine biologist, Charles Griffiths, could not identify the species when Zsilavecz brought it to him and so samples were sent to an expert in Vienna.
