Michael and the Peppermints

Michael and the Peppermints follows University of Florida graduate student Michael Dickson as he studies Gulf of Mexico peppermint shrimp. Peppermint shrimp are a popular species in the aquarium trade but little is known about their ecology or population dynamics, something Michael hopes to rectify through his graduate research. In the film we tag along as Michael first collects peppermint shrimp in the field aboard a commercial bait shrimp boat then returns to the lab to conduct his studies. Aquarium peppermint shrimp are currently primarily collected from the wild, and Michael hopes his research will lay the fundamental baseline to ensure sustainable harvest of this species in the future.