Australian Lawn Shrimp

This species is the most common landhopper in the UK. It originated in New South Wales and Southern Queensland in Australia.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Arcitalitrus dorrieni
Family: 
Landhoppers
Family Latin name: 
Talitridae
Category: 
Invertebrates
Vernacular names: 

Lawn shrimp, lawn prawn, landhopper, woodhopper, Australian mud shrimp

Species description

Species description

These creatures resemble woodlice, but are flatter side to side. They can also jump because of their longer rear legs. Along with woodlice, these creatures are the UK's only crustacean to live on land. They are invertebrates, not insects.

This species is the most common landhopper in the UK. It originated in New South Wales and Southern Queensland in Australia and arrived here not by hopping by as a stowaway, probably in exotic plants. It was first found in Britain in the Scilly Isles in 1924, where it was found in the litter under Australian tree ferns that had been planted there.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

The Talitridae is a family of landhoppers (also known as sandhoppers or sand fleas). They are not true fleas and do not bite, although they might give that impression by their energetic jumping.

Category information

Centipedes, millipedes, and their kin are collectively called myriapods. Centipedes are carnivores, and have one pair of jointed legs per body segment, which never have 100 segments, but vary from 30 to 354. Millipedes have two pairs of jointed legs per body segment, up to 333 in number, and mostly feed on decaying plant material. Myriapods are arthropods and share a common ancestor with the crustacea, that includes insects, which in turn share a common ancestor with the arachnids. Arthropods have an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired, jointed appendages. They have highly developed sense organs. 84% of all species on the Earth are arthropods. Crustacea generally have two pairs of appendages (antennules and antennae) in front of the mouth and paired appendages near the mouth that function as jaws. They occupy a wide range of habitats, and many are aquatic, although the largest group in terms of number of species, the insects, are mainly terrestrial. Woodlice are common crustaceans in gardens.

Earthworms are annelids, evolving on a separate lineage to the arthropods, but they share a common ancestor with the molluscs. The Annelida is a large group of segmented worms, also called ring worms. Molluscs are a large, diverse group of invertebrates, which have unsegmented bodies enclosed within calcareous shells, and are represented in gardens mainly by terrestrial gastropods such as snails and slugs. Other molluscs, particularly the bivalves and cephalopods, are aquatic. Representatives of all these groups are found in the cemetery.