Monster Larva's Secrets Revealed After Two Centuries

A new finding that is being published in the Journal Ecology and Evolution unveils the mystery of the larva that had shown up in the guts of the other fish but had no adult counterpart. For nearly two centuries the researchers at the George Washington University have been tracking down the mystery of Cerataspis Monstrosa the monster larva.

Biology Professor Keith Crandall from George Washington University cracked the code of this mysterious crustaceans DNA. From his finding he states that the larva C. Monstrosa and the aristeid shrimp known as Pleisopenaeus armatus are similar as the larvae and adults form from the same species.

Tracing a match between the two was defiantly a tedious task as C. Monstrosa has the ability to morph into a shrimp bearing no similarity to its babyish form.

According to the journal, "C. Monstrosa is decribed as one having a heavy armor, a thick body and exceptional horn ornamentation makes them "monstrous and misshapen animal." Predators like skipjack, yellowfin and blackfin tuna and dolphin feed on them. Whereas Pleisopenaeus with red enclosed exterior resembles a crab or lobster.

Dr. Crandall said, "It was not until the late 19^th century that researchers started to suspect a link between the Cerataspis and some of the deep sea shrimp. Mid-water oceanic collections in the northern Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly included a single specimen of C. monstrosa for genetic analyses."

"Because previous studies suggested an affinity between Cerataspsis and penaeoid shrimp, and more specifically the family Aristeidae, we sampled heavily within these groups," he said.

"It's very exciting to have solved a nearly 200-year-old conundrum," said Dr. Crandall. "This was a project that involved having good luck with obtaining the sample, exceptional field knowledge to preserve the specimen and know that it was something special, outstanding state-of-the-art molecular and analytical tools to collect unique data that have only been available in the last 10 years to answer this question and to have an outstanding database of reference sequences to compare against."

The researchers conclude stating that the link between larval and adult not only helped them in understanding the biodiversity but also provides a deep insight into the life history, and ecology of the organism.