Reef Life
Caridina Dennerli, Crimson Shrimp
A freshwater shrimp in deep crimson: small enough to miss, striking enough to frame.
What caught our eyeFound nowhere else on Earth except a single lake, Lake Poso on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.
- Available as posters, apparel and accessories, pick your format on the store
- AI-assisted illustration, directed and curated by us
- Printed only when you order it: no stock, no unsold inventory
- Produced and shipped by our marketplace partners
Field notes
Caridina dennerli is a small freshwater shrimp, and the reason we drew it is colour. The body is a deep, saturated red broken up by small pale flecks, with legs and antennae translucent enough to catch the light behind them.
At life size almost none of that is readable. This is an animal a couple of centimetres long, which means the part worth looking at is the part nobody sees. Enlarging it is not a stylistic decision, it is the only way the detail exists at all.
The illustration follows the logic of an old aquarium plate: the animal isolated, the posture neutral, no scenery competing for attention. The colour is taken from reference rather than invented, and the pale speckling is placed one mark at a time instead of sprayed on. Part of the Reef Life collection, available on posters, prints and apparel, printed only once ordered.
