Critically Endangered
Caridina spongicola
Caridina spongicola
Caridina spongicola is a decapod crustacean in the family Atyidae (order Decapoda), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The species has a red- and white-patterned body that has made it popular in the tropical fish industry. Legs and feelers have bands of both red and white along their lengths, eye stalks are red, and the eyes themselves are black and fairly large in size (0.8-0.9 x 0.4-0.6 mm). The carapace of the species has three red stripes running along it, the final one at the base of the tail, with red coloration running halfway along the top of the head, from the tip.
Caridina spongicola is a small species of freshwater shrimp from Sulawesi (Indonesia) that reaches 0.64 to 1.27 cm (0.25 to 0.5 in) in length.
Range and habitat
Caridina spongicola is endemic to Lake Towuti, the largest and southernmost lake in the Malili complex of the island of Sulawesi, fed by a river that flows from the lake to the Boni Bay. It is only known from the northwestern arm of Lake Towuti, but it can be locally common, with as many as 137 individuals recorded on a single sponge and one study finding an average of about 29 individuals per sponge. This soft-tissued, undescribed species of sponge is also restricted to the northwestern arm of the lake and reaches up to about 20 cm (8 in) in diameter.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Caridina spongicola is a "complex breeder", meaning that young are hatched as miniature adults with the same coloration (although not as intense), with no need to transfer from salt and/or brackish water to freshwater as they develop through larval stages.
In crisis
Caridina spongicola is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Caridina spongicola, Wikidata item Q13456021. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
