Stargazer shrimp found in South Africa

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AFRICA: A shrimp that its appears like a crab upward has been found in South Africa by biologists from the University of Capetown (UCT). The shrimp looks like a usual shrimp except for its stargazing eyes that look up to the skies. As its name suggests, people who first saw it called it stargazer shrimp because of its eye’s direction. The stargazer shrimp is just about half an inch long and bright red in color
A regular shrimp have eyes like insects that looks towards different directions at once. The look that it is gazing upward is actually just an illusion because shrimps do not have pupils and irises. Experts suggests that the unusual marking on its body just appeared as part of its evolution to protect itself against predators. The eye markings also make the shrimps appear larger. Apparently, the eye markings you see on shrimps are also available in some species of moth.
Charles Griffiths, a biologist at the University of Capetown, discovered the first stargazing shrimp. He cannot identify the species of the tiny shrimp so he sent a sample to Karl Wittmann at the University of Vienna in Austria. Wittmann identified the sample as male so he asked for female samples. The divers asked to look for female species looked on the same area and found two previously-unknown species.
“I thought at least one of them must be a female. It’s amazing that we’re still finding so many new species in heavily dived waters like False Bay, right on our doorstep,” Griffiths said of the findings.
The stargazing shrimp or Stargazer mysids are known as Mysidopsis zsilaveczi was named after Guido Zsilavecz, the first photographer to record the new species.
South Africa is home to different marine species and every year, at least 30 new marines species are being discovered.