Morphology, anatomy, and physiology of white shrimp

Shrimp body is divided into 2 parts, the head and body section. the head fused with the chest called the cephalothorax. This section consists of 13 sections. 8 segment the chest and 5 segments on the head. Body and the abdomen consists of 6 segments, each segment has a pair of swimming feet are also segmented.

The head protected by a shell called a carapace. the front of the carapace tapered and curved shape of the letter "S" so-called rostrum. at the top of the rostrum there are serrations which totaled 7-9, while the bottom three serrations. Another section contained in the head including: a pair of compound eyes, mouth with jaws (mandibles) are strong, a pair of large antennae, a pair of fins head (scophocerit), a pair of jaws auxiliaries (maxilliped), and 5 pairs of feet road (pereopod) .

Abdomen enclosed by a 6 segment of one another is connected by a thin membrane. There are five pairs of swimming legs are attached to the first segment to fifth segment, while the sixth segment swimming legs changing its form into a tail fan (urophoda). Above tail fan there is tail that tapered at the edges is called the telson. Internal organs that can be observed are the gut (intestine), which leads to the anus located at the end of the sixth segment.

White shrimp are carnivorous animals that feed on small crustaceans, amphypoda, and Polychaeta. White shrimp are naturally nocturnal animals are active at night to find food, whereas during the day hiding in the substrate or mud. But in pond aquaculture feeding can be done more frequently to spur growth.

White shrimp need food with protein content around 35% lower when compared with shrimp that require feed with protein content of 45%. Shrimp growth is influenced by two main factors that moulting frequency and growth rate increases. Environmental conditions and food are the main factors that affect molting.

During the molting process, there has been solving the cuticle between the carapace with intercalary celeryte, whereas in the anterior part of cephalothorax and appendages are interested to stretch. The newly formed carapace after moulting is very soft and getting more and more hardened to adjust the size of the shrimp body.

Moulting frequency on white shrimp decreased along with increasing the size of shrimp. The larval stage, the white shrimp molting every 40 hours at 28 oC. While juveniles weighing 1-5 grams, molting every 4-6 days. The next on the weight of 15 grams, the period of moulting occurs every 2 weeks.