A fact from Praunus flexuosus appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 August 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Praunus flexuosus, the first mysid shrimp ever to be described, may have been transported to North America during World War II?
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It seems odd that a shrimp would be considered a fouling organism, the way a barnacle is. Might the transport have occurred in ballast tanks, the way the zebra mussel was likely brought to the Great Lakes and elsewhere?
--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 15:16, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It does indeed, and I agree that ballast water seems a much more likely explanation a priori. We are limited by the sources, however, and Astthorsson states "Wigley and Burns (1971) speculate that it was transported as a fouling organism on the bottom of ships during World War II", which gives us little leeway. Wigley & Burns (1971) state: "Possibly it was transported from Europe to a New England port, such as Boston or Portsmouth, N.H., among fouling organisms on the bottoms of ships during World War II when convoys of merchant ships were making frequent and rather regular transoceanic voyages". This doesn't give us any clue as to why they favoured that explanation over any other; perhaps they simply didn't think of ballast water. Had it been a primary source, one might have considered quietly dropping it, but since the claim has been repeated in other reputable publications, it's harder to argue for that. If I ever write a learned article about P. flexuosus (not likely), remind me to add the counterspeculation that ballast water was the vehicle! --Stemonitis (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
