Orange-striped Shrimp Goby (For Corporation)

Walk-around of the orange-striped shrimp goby, Stogonobiops yasha Yoshino et Shimada, 2010 by For Corporation, Another Aquarium (year of release unknown). The fish is displayed with its symbiotic shrimp, the red-clawed snapping shrimp, Alpheus randalli Banner et Banner, 1980. I have been after this figure a while now, albeit mainly for the shrimp. However since I started building a synoptic animal collection, this gives me an opportunity for a new fish species as well.

Shrimp gobies have a symbiotic relationship with snapping shrimp. The two species share a burrow together. The shrimp maintains the burrow and in turn gets to feed on food scraps from the fish. The shrimp is nearly blind and is very sensitive to movements of the fish, often keeping an antennae in constant contact with the fish. If the fish retreated into the burrow to avoid danger, this shrimp follows!

The figure comes in 6 pieces: 1) base, 2) shrimp body, 3) shrimp legs and claws, 4) fish, 5) fish's dorsal fin, and 6) signage (in Japanese, presumably the Japanese name of the fish). The base is 3.5 cm in diameter. The shrimp is just short of 1:1, so assuming the fish and shrimp are scaled together, the whole display can serve as 1:1 (I cannot measure the fish since the posterior end is incomplete, being 'within the burrow').

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This is not the only goby-shrimp figure set. Colorata made the yellownose prawn goby, Stonogobiops xanthorhinica Randall, 1982 also displayed with A. randalli. I hadn't paid attention until I started focusing on fish, that these two figures are different fish species! For both figures, the shrimp is lacking some accuracy, as one claw should be larger than the other. The Colorata figure focuses on the fish, with the shrimp merely an accessory display, but the For Corporation figures seems to emphasize both equally.

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I have that figure too. It is not very stabil

widukind wrote:

I have that figure too. It is not very stabil

You are correct; the pieces do not fit very snuggly (esp. the dorsal fin on the fish).