It occasionally erupts into dense swarms, one of which resulted in the naming of the country Cameroon.

Lepidophthalmus turneranus is found in lagoons and estuaries, including almost fresh water, around the Gulf of Guinea from Togo to Congo.

[3] When James Aspinall Turner presented the first specimens to the British Museum, he noted that:[4] ... this long-bodied Crustacean appears periodically in the river in prodigious numbers, which disappear in the course of ten days or a fortnight.

The natives are very fond of them, as they are delicious eating; and as soon as they make their appearance in the river, the men here leave their usual pursuits to catch them.The Cameroon ghost shrimp was first described by Adam White in 1861, under the name Callianassa turnerana.

That name was anglicised to "Cameroons River", which came to be used for the whole country, and borrowed into other languages (including the French Cameroun, the German Kamerun and the Dutch Kameroen).