'Lost' shrimp species rediscovered in India after 72 years
The bamboo shrimp (Atyopsis spinipes), missing from mainland India for over seven decades, has finally been spotted again in Karnataka and Odisha.
This find came after a two-year search led by Dr. S Prakash and his team, sparked when an aquarium hobbyist noticed one in Odisha back in 2022.
How they found it (and why it matters)
Researchers tracked the shrimp down in brackish waters with sandy bottoms and mangrove banks—places where earlier surveys had missed them or mixed them up with similar species.
Unlike its close relatives, this shrimp can handle big swings in saltiness and temperature, which helps it survive in more places.
Why we should care
Finding this shrimp again shows there are still gaps in what we know about India's freshwater life.
But its habitats are under threat from sand mining, construction, and the aquarium trade—especially since these filter-feeders can't be easily bred outside the wild.
The discovery is a wake-up call to protect both the species and its fragile home before it disappears again.