Antshrimp

**Antshrimp** are a species of social shrimps who build nests. Antshrimp have a hierarchy built around the Queen Ruler, her Mistresses, the Midwives, Spongehands, and hunter-gatherers. Sometimes super nests appear when several Antshrimp Queen Rulers come together creating super hives known as a Sovereign.

## Hierarchy

### Queen Ruler

The ruler of a nest, these Antshrimp are in charge of birthing the youth that will run the territory. As the queen ages, more and more specialized Antshrimp are born.

### Mistresses

The mistresses are the males, and the first Antshrimp the queen ruler gives birth to once her original husbands die. They are in charge of constructing the coral nest where the Queen ruler resides, they also serve as soldiers to defend the nest and regularly mate with the queen to produce further generations of Antshrimp.

### Midwives

The second generation of Antshrimp to be birthed, these Antshrimp are fertile, and in time become queen rulers. While in the nest they are in charge of caring for the eggs when the output of the queen becomes too rapid for her to care for her young herself. These Antshrimp rarely venture out of the nest until they are of age to become queen rulers of their own nests.

### Spongehands

These specialized Antshrimp farm a special type of sponge (Shrimp’s Scrounge) common to their ecosystem. The spongehands have specially modified limbs to “fan” the water currents in their sponge farms, in order for nutrients to flow into the Scrounge rooms. The scrounge is then used to feed the Antshrimp.

### Hunter-gatherers

Easily the smartest of Antshrimp generations, these Antshrimp hunt for prey in packs. They usually hunt small fish and gather shellfish for the colony to eat. They often herd their prey to the nest as they are terrible at carrying dead weight. They also do not bring back carrion as the Antshrimp are susceptible to sickness from spoiled meat.

The arrival of Hunter Gatherers also coincides with the Antshrimp building coral cages where they put the animals they capture, to eat later. In extremely developed nests, entire breeding operations of sea cucumbers and guppies were observed.

## Buildings

### Coral Nest

Coral nests are where the Antshrimp live, they are made of hardened Shrimps Scrounge, a type of coral that the spongehand antshrimp grow and harvest for the colony.

### Coral Cage

Coral cages are cages that the Antshrimp build in order to keep the animals they capture and eat later. The antshrimp have been seen raising sea cucumbers and guppies. However, they do not seem to eat these animals, as they have only been seen to eat shrimp's scrounge.

### Sovereign

A sovereign is a super organism composed of multiple Antshrimp nests, why they do this is unknown as no real cooperation is observed between the nests. The super organism created from the alliance of several antshrimp nests, how these different nests coordinate is unknown, but pheromones carried by members of nests as messengers from one Queen ruler to another is very possible, and possibly there exists a new generation of Antshrimp dedicated specifically to delivering messages.

## Trade items

Antshrimp are fished commercially as food.