"Sarah Navarro" wrote in message ink.net...
I am still thoroughly enjoying my shrimp. I did get a panic feeling in my
stomach yesterday when I went to the tank and I thought something ate him.
I found his skin and his feeler thingies on top of a rock, but then I saw
him still in his regular barnacle shell hiding place. I guess he was
molting. Is there a site where I can learn more about this process, such as
how often they do it, why it happens, etc? Also, I didn't know that they
lost their feeler thingies also. Weird.

Mine do molt every two weeks. Regularly.

What you call "feeler thingies" are properly called antennas.

And yes, exoskeleton covers every part of shrimps body, including
all legs and antennas. To read more get any book about zoology.

The best book with basic knowledge level and not too difficult language
I can recommend would be "Living Invertebrates" by Pearse and Buchsbaum.
This book is a classic textbook, available in almost every library...
You will have a chance learning a lot of other reef animals, too.
First edition of this book is from 1942 but it was reprinted and updated
later many, many times. If I am not wrong, recent reprint was in 2000.