Mysis shrimp might have a white, yellowish white, greenish white or even a light grey color. What might be the cause of these differences in color?

   The Mysis shrimp (AKA opossum shrimp) we process –Neomysis japonica– are actually not shrimp but crustaceans resembling shrimp. Female mysids have a brood pouch in which they carry their larvae. In contrast, ‘true’ shrimp have no brood pouch and have free-swimming larvae.

   Neomysis japonica naturally occur in brackish water, so in estuaries and lagoons. They spend most of their time living on the estuary or lagoon floor (which is why they are called epibentic organisms), or just above the floor (hyperbentic organisms). The omnivorous mysids mainly feed by predating on mesozoo-planktonic animals (microscopic, planktonic animals having a size between 0.2 and 2 mm, e.g. copepods, rotifers, etc.), estuarine flocs (suspended sediment particles & detritus) and microalgae[1]. As is the case with brine shrimp (see here), the items the mysids were feeding on will determine the color shine they have when being harvested.

   Our mysids are harvested daily just before dawn during late winter and early spring. Mysids harvested from different places in an estuary might show a different color even though they were harvested on the same day. The harvested mysids are transported to our facility where they undergo a succession of processing steps before being packaged in blisters or flat-packs, quick-frozen, cased out and stored in our cold storage. Only hours pass between the time the mysids are harvested and the time they are frozen.