Most tiger shrimp is farmed, though a significant amount is harvested from the wild by trawlers working mud bottoms from very shallow water to depths beyond 300 feet . The largest of 300 commercially available shrimp species worldwide, tigers can grow to 13 inches, but harvest size averages 9 to 11 inches.
Many countries supply black tigers from both farmed and wild sources.
The species is distributed over a huge range, from east and southeast Africa through the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, around the Indian subcontinent and through the Malay Archipelago to northern Australia and the Philippines. Important suppliers include Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Product Profile Farmed black tiger shrimp have a mild, almost bland flavor compared to the pronounced taste of ocean-harvested Gulf shrimp. Cooked tiger's meat is also softer than that of other shrimp species. Tigers have gray to black stripes on gray or bluish shells and associated stripes on the peeled meat.