Penaeidae is a family of marine crustaceans in the suborder Dendrobranchiata, which are often referred to as penaeid shrimp or penaeid prawns. The Penaeidae contain many species of economic importance, such as the tiger prawn, whiteleg shrimp, Atlantic white shrimp, and Indian prawn. Many prawns are the subject of commercial fishery, and farming, both in marine settings, and in freshwater farms. Lateral line–like sense organs on the antennae have been reported in some species of Penaeidae. At 210 metres per second (760 km/h), the myelinated giant interneurons of pelagic penaeid shrimp have the world record for impulse conduction speed in any animal.
Penaeus is a genus of prawns, including the giant tiger prawn, the most important species of farmed crustacean worldwide. The genus has been reorganised following a proposition of Pérez Farfante and Kensley based on morphological differences, in particular the genital characteristics of these animals, although this revision has not been universally accepted. Following the revision, many species formerly in the genus Penaeus have been reassigned to new genera in the family Penaeidae: Farfantepenaeus, Fenneropenaeus, Litopenaeus, and Marsupenaeus. The following table gives an overview:
Acetes is a genus of small shrimp that resemble krill, which is native to the western and central Indo-Pacific, the Atlantic coast of the Americas, Pacific coast of South America and inland waters of South America. Although most are from marine or estuarine habitats, the South American A. paraguayensis is a fresh water species. Several of its species are important for the production of shrimp paste in Southeast Asia, including A. japonicus, which is the world's most heavily fished species of wild shrimp or prawn in terms of total tonnage.
Farfantepenaeus notialis is a species of marine crustacean in the family Penaeidae.
Rimapenaeus constrictus, common name roughneck shrimp, is a species of prawn found along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It has been recorded in coastal regions of Bermuda, Brazil, Canada and the United States.
Fenner Albert Chace Jr. was an American carcinologist.
Metapenaeopsis, the velvet shrimps, is a prawn genus in the family Penaeidae. It contains these species:
Sicyonia is a genus of prawns, placed in its own family, Sicyoniidae. It differs from other prawns in that the last three pairs of its pleopods are uniramous, rather than biramous as seen in all other prawns.
Litopenaeus is a genus of prawns, formerly included in the genus Penaeus. It contains five species:
Marsupenaeus is a monotypic genus of prawn. It contains a single species, Marsupenaeus japonicus, known as the kuruma shrimp, kuruma prawn, or Japanese tiger prawn. It occurs naturally in bays and seas of the Indo-West Pacific, but has also reached the Mediterranean Sea as a Lessepsian migrant. It is one of the largest species of prawns, and is accordingly one of the most economically important species in the family.
Isabel Pérez Farfante was a Cuban-born carcinologist. She was the first Cuban woman to receive her Ph.D. from an Ivy League school. She returned to Cuba from the United States only to be blacklisted by Fidel Castro's government. She and her family escaped Cuba, and she became one of the world's foremost zoologists studying prawns. She discovered large populations of shrimp off the coast of Cuba and published one of the most noted books on shrimps: "Penaeoid and Sergestoid Shrimps and Prawns of the World. Keys and Diagnoses for the Families and Genera."
Trachysalambria curvirostris is a species of prawn that lives in shallow waters of the Indo-West Pacific. It is one of the most important species targeted by prawn fishery, with annual harvests of more than 300,000 t, mostly landed in China.
Trachysalambria is a genus of prawns, containing ten species. It was erected in 1934 by Martin Burkenroad, as a subgenus of Trachypenaeus, with T. curvirostris as its type species. That subgenus was elevated to the rank of genus in 1997 by Isabel Pérez Farfante and Brian Kensley. The ten species are:
Farfantepenaeus aztecus is a species of marine penaeid shrimps found around the east coast of the US and Mexico. They are an important commercial species in the US. The FAO refers to them as the northern brown shrimp; other common names, used in the US, are brown shrimp, golden shrimp, red shrimp or redtail shrimp.
Sicyonia ingentis is a species of prawn in the family Sicyoniidae known by the common name ridgeback prawn. It is native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, where it occurs along the coast of California and Baja California, its distribution extending from Monterey Bay to Isla María Madre off Nayarit. It also lives in the Gulf of California. Other common names include Pacific rock shrimp and Japanese shrimp. In Spanish it is called camarón de piedra del Pacífico and cacahuete.
Aristeidae is a family of Dendrobranchiata decapod crustaceans known as deep-sea shrimps, gamba prawns or gamba shrimps. Some species are subject to commercial fisheries.
Solenocera is a genus of prawns in the family Solenoceridae. Solenocera occur from 0 to 2,067 meters deep in the ocean.
Metapenaeopsis commensalis is a species of crustacean in the family Penaeidae first described by Lancelot Alexander Borradaile in 1898.
Metapenaeopsis miersi is a crustacean species in the family Penaeidae described by Lipke Bijdeley Holthuis in 1952.
The eastern king prawn is an edible dendrobranch prawn endemic to eastern Australia. Its scientific name is Melicertus plebejus or Penaeus plebejus. It is caught by commercial and recreational fishers for human food.
