A Day In The Life Of A Deep Sea Shrimp
By using the latest technology, our Wildlife Unit has produced this amazing insight into the life of a shrimp. We tell the story of the Shrimp through the little beady shrimpy eyes of 'Dave' one of a hundred million shrimps living at the bottom of an ocean near you...
"I don't wake up like you humans do, down here in the abyss its always dark anyway, so we don't tend to follow the day/night routine. Instead I tend to tuck myself into the sand somewhere and grab a bit of shuteye when I get a chance.
"The first task of the day is to do a bit of breeding. Breeding is very important for the survival of shrimps, so I spread a bit of sperm about and hope that some lady shrimp has left some eggs about to be fertilised. I reckon I must have fathered about 7000 shrimps in my life so far - and I've only been an adult shrimp myself for the last two hours.
"After doing my breeding, I usually spend a bit of time eating. Actually, I spend quite a lot of the day eating, when I'm not breeding. There's not a lot of grub around down here, so you have to make do with what you can find. It's a bit of a mucky process, I eat the silt from the bottom, filter out the edible stuff and spit the rest out. If I'm really hungry I'll sometimes eat some of my own offspring - there's enough of them!
"Most days I also have to put up with others trying to eat me as well. Last Wednesday a bloody great whale came down here, and it took some nifty evasive action on my part to avoid being part of its lunch. You always need to keep one eye looking over your shoulder for things like that. The other thing we have to keep an eye out for is you humans trying to catch us, the last thing I want is to end up in a prawn cocktail.
"By about half way through the day, I'm usually ready for a bit of a rest, so I either find a nice crack in a rock and hide for a bit, or bury myself in the sand. I'll catch a few zeds then before you know it its back to the mundanities of breeding and eating.
"Of course its not all eating, breeding and avoiding getting eating. Sometimes a bunch of us will get together and have a bit of a laugh, chasing the lady shrimps, that sort of thing. But basically it is all eating, breeding and avoiding getting eaten. It's not much of a life but it's all I know, and I wouldn't want to change it. I suppose pretty soon my time will up, but I've enjoyed life, so when I finally do get eaten at least I'll feel it's all been worth it."