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

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 to which species it referred. Holthuis also showed that P. monodon had to be the type species of the genus Penaeus.

Description

Females can reach about 33 cm (13 in) long, but are typically 25–30 cm (10–12 in) long and weight 200–320 g (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). The carapace and abdomen are transversely banded with alternative red and white. The antennae are grayish brown. Brown pereiopods and pleopods are present with fringing setae in red.

Distribution

Its natural distribution is the Indo-Pacific, ranging from the eastern coast of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, as far as Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and northern Australia.

It is an invasive species in the northern waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off the southern US.

Aquaculture

Penaeus monodon is the second-most widely cultured prawn species in the world, after only whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei. In 2009, 770,000 tonnes were produced, with a total value of US$3,650,000,000.

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". 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".


source - Wikipedia