Penaeus monodon

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Penaeus monodon
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Dendrobranchiata
Family: Penaeidae
Genus: Penaeus
Species: P. monodon
Binomial name
Penaeus monodon
Fabricius, 1798
Synonyms [1]
  • Penaeus carinatus Dana, 1852
  • Penaeus tahitensis Heller, 1862
  • Penaeus coeruleus Stebbing, 1905
  • Penaeus bubulus Kubo, 1949

Penaeus monodon, the giant tiger prawn (and also known by other common names), is a marine crustacean that is widely reared for food.

Contents

Distribution

Its natural distribution is the Indo-West-Pacific, ranging from the eastern coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, as far as Southeast Asia, the Sea of Japan and northern Australia.[2]

It is an invasive species in the northern waters of the Gulf of Mexico.[3][4]

Description

Females can reach approximately 33 centimetres (13 in) long, but are typically 25–30 cm (10–12 in) long and weight 200–320 grams (7–11 oz); males are slightly smaller at 20–25 cm (8–10 in) long and weighing 100–170 g (3.5–6.0 oz).[5]

Aquaculture

Penaeus monodon is the most widely cultured prawn species in the world, although it is gradually losing ground to the whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei.[5] In 2009, 770,000 tonnes was produced, with a total value of US$3,650,000,000.[5]

Sustainable consumption

In 2010, Greenpeace added Penaeus 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".[6] The reasons given by Greenpeace were "destruction of vast areas of mangroves in several countries, over-fishing of juvenile shrimp from the wild to supply farms, and significant human rights abuses".[6]

Taxonomy

Penaeus monodon was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1798. That name was overlooked for a long time, however, until 1949, when Lipke Holthuis clarified which species it referred to.[7] Holthuis also showed that P. monodon had to be the type species of the genus Penaeus.[7]

References


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