Whiteleg Shrimp

Whiteleg Shrimp, also called Pacific White Shrimp, is a marine crustacean (Litopenaeus vannamei) native to the eastern Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru, and now the dominant farmed shrimp species worldwide by volume. It largely displaced the black tiger shrimp as the aquaculture industry's preferred species from the 1990s onward because of its faster growth, tolerance of high stocking densities and greater resistance to certain diseases that had devastated tiger shrimp farms. China, Ecuador, Indonesia, Vietnam and India are among the largest producers, raising the shrimp in earthen ponds and increasingly in intensive lined and indoor systems. Its farming has expanded so far beyond its native range that most whiteleg shrimp production now occurs in Asia rather than the Americas.