What Do Ocean Shrimp Eat?

Ocean shrimp are known to humans as the fruit of the sea because there are so many different ways that you can prepare, cook, and eat them. However, these little creatures that dwell in plentiful numbers at the bottom of the ocean floor must first grow in order to make a good meal. And, like all animals, they need to eat in order to move through the stages of their life and grow to full maturity.

The diet of an ocean shrimp includes a few different things, but their diet generally consists of:

• Egg yolk (but not from the kind of eggs you're used to!)
• Algae and zooplankton

Shrimp Diet

There are essentially four basic types of shrimp. These include the:

• Brown
• Pink
• White
• Snapping

Each of these four types of shrimp can live in the ocean, and the general shrimp diet is pretty much the same for most shrimp.

What a shrimp eats will change over the course of the animal's life, evolving as the shrimp grows. The food a shrimp eats changes as it moves from one stage to another in its lifecycle.

Egg Stage Diet

The first stage of the shrimp’s lifecycle is the egg stage.

• A female shrimp can lay anywhere between 500,000 to one million eggs at any one time in areas on the sea floor.
• These eggs hatch in a period of 24 hours. The baby shrimp that are born are called nauplii.
• At this stage in the life cycle the shrimp do not move much. Their main source of food is the yolk of the egg in which they were born.

Larvae Stage Diet

After surviving and eating their only source of food available to them during the egg stage, the shrimp enter the second phase of their lifecycle - the larvae stage.

• During this period, the shrimp undergo a metamorphosis and change a bit in appearance. Shrimp in this stage of the lifecycle are called zoeae.
• As they change their appearance, shrimp also change their diet. Shrimp switch to eating water algae during this stage of their life.
• In approximately twelve days the shrimp mature from the larvae stage into young adult shrimp.

Adult Stage Diet

Provided the baby shrimp have made it this far, they will enter the final stage of their lifecycle. 

• In the final stage of the lifecycle, the shrimp morph once again to closely resemble miniature versions of their adult selves.
• A shrimp at this stage in the lifecycle is called a myses.
• Shrimp in this stage continue to feed on algae and add zooplankton to their diet as well.
• The adult shrimp then continue to feed on algae and zooplankton the rest of their lives until they die naturally, are caught, or eaten by larger predators in the sea.

Next time you eat a shrimp, you'll be able to appreciate more about what they animal had been eating as it grew and finally found its way to your plate.