| Penaeus monodon | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Dendrobranchiata |
| Family: | Penaeidae |
| Genus: | Penaeus |
| Species: | P. monodon |
| Binomial name | |
| Penaeus monodon Fabricius, 1798 |
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| Synonyms [1] | |
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Penaeus monodon, the giant tiger prawn (and also known by other common names), is a marine crustacean that is widely reared for food.
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Its natural distribution is the Indo-West-Pacific, ranging from the eastern coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, as far as Southeast Asia, the Sea of Japan and northern Australia.[2]
It is an invasive species in the northern waters of the Gulf of Mexico.[3]
Females can reach approximately 33 centimetres (13 in) long, but are typically 25–30 cm (10–12 in) long and weight 200–320 grams (7–11 oz); males are slightly smaller at 20–25 cm (8–10 in) long and weighing 100–170 g (3.5–6.0 oz).[4]
Penaeus monodon is the most widely cultured prawn species in the world, although it is gradually losing ground to the whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei.[4] In 2009, 770,000 tonnes was produced, with a total value of US$3,650,000,000.[4]
In 2010, Greenpeace added Penaeus monodon to its seafood red list – "a list of fish that are commonly sold in supermarkets around the world, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries".[5] The reasons given by Greenpeace were "destruction of vast areas of mangroves in several countries, over-fishing of juvenile shrimp from the wild to supply farms, and significant human rights abuses".[5]