Last week, Walter Jones of Candelo was prawning in the Bega River at Handcocks Bridge, Mogareeka when he saw the creature.

“My mate got it in his net and showed it to me and I thought ‘wow’,” he said. 

“I’d never seen anything like that before. 

“I showed it to a couple of other fishermen and they all said ‘what the hell is that?’.”

Mr Jones said the creepy-looking creature’s body was about 8cm long and it had two long arms about 22cm, as well as a few extra hair-like antenna than a normal prawn would have. 

It was aggressive and when he picked the shrimp up by the tail it grabbed him straight away with sharp claws, “like needles”.  

The Australian Museum and the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre (SCMDC) both identified it as Macrobrachium novaehollandiae, a species of estuarine shrimp common across northern Australia to southern-central NSW. 

According to the Atlas of Living Australia, the furthest south the shrimp has previously been found was at Lake Tabourie, south of Ulladulla, in 1936. So a museum spokesperson said the discovery of it as far south as Bega was “very interesting”.

SCMDC centre manager Kerryn Wood suggested the shrimp may have travelled down in the east Australian current (EAC) in its larval or planktonic form until it found a suitable place to settle, such as an estuary like Mogareeka and the Bega River.

“The EAC has moved further south over the last few years bringing with it warmer waters and marine animals,” she said.  

“Despite these shrimp being widespread and abundant, they’re not normally found this far.

“There are seven known ‘hot spots’ around the world where species distribution movements are occurring in greater numbers and more species – they are ‘hot spots’ of activity. Eden to Bermagui is one of those ‘hot spots’.” 

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s website Redlist, Macrobrachium novaehollandiae usually live in the middle and upper reaches of estuaries, as far upstream as the tides reach.

As it is widespread in northern and eastern Australia and has no identified threats, the species is considered to be of least concern in terms of conservation.

But what happened to the shrimp Mr Jones found? 

“I ate his body and kept the head and legs,” he said. 

“It tasted really bad, a bit like egg. The others tasted really good though!” 

To record marine species, visit www.redmap.org.au.