Giant tiger prawn

블랙타이거새우

A large prawn with tiger-like stripes that lives in shallow Indo-Pacific seas and estuaries. It reaches about 20-30 cm and is one of the most widely farmed prawns in the world.

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At a glance

Class: Crustaceans
Lives in: Indo-Pacific coasts, e.g. the South China Sea off southern Vietnam
Diet: Eats both plants and meat (omnivore)
Habitat: coasts

Quick answers

Where does the Giant tiger prawn live?

It lives in coasts of the Indian and Pacific oceans. On the globe you can find it near Indo-Pacific coasts, e.g. the South China Sea off southern Vietnam.

What does the Giant tiger prawn eat?

Its diet: eats both plants and meat (omnivore).

The giant tiger prawn, also called the black tiger shrimp, is a large prawn with red and white bands across its shell and tail, a bit like a tiger's stripes. Females can reach about 33 centimetres, though 25 to 30 is typical, and weigh about 200 to 320 grams. Males are smaller. It lives naturally in the Indo-Pacific, from eastern Africa and Arabia to Southeast Asia and northern Australia.

Young prawns grow up in sandy estuaries and mangroves, then move to deeper water of up to about 110 metres. It is one of the most widely farmed prawns in the world: in 2009, about 770,000 tonnes were produced.

Night-time feeder

In the wild the tiger prawn is nocturnal. By day it burrows into the bottom, and at night it comes out to feed on worms, small shellfish, tiny crustaceans, detritus and algae. Females can lay around 800,000 eggs. Adults live over muddy or rocky bottoms, down to about 110 metres. Its antennae are greyish brown and its legs are brown with red fringes of fine hairs.

Farming and escapes

The tiger prawn is the second most widely farmed prawn in the world, after the whiteleg shrimp. Liao I-chiu, known as the Father of Shrimp Farming, helped develop methods to farm it in the late 1960s. Some prawns have escaped from farms, and in places like the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic off the southern United States it is now an invasive species.

Fun facts

One of the largest shrimps sold as food, it can grow to about 33 cm and is widely farmed in Asia.
It is named for its red and white banded body.
A female can lay about 800,000 eggs.
It was farmed commercially starting in the late 1960s.
Escaped prawns have become an invasive species in the Gulf of Mexico.