[citation needed] Syncaris pacifica is a ten-legged crustacean that employs a two-pronged approach to camouflage: it uses a technique of translucency coupled with strategically placed chromatophores, which occur internally as well as on the surface.

California freshwater shrimp move quite torpidly and are practically invisible among water column leaf and twig substrates, and among the slender, exposed, living roots of riparian vegetation along undercut stream banks.

[citation needed] The precise historic distribution of Syncaris pacifica is not known, since geologic and climatic changes since the early Quaternary Period have significantly altered river courses of the Northern California coast.

[6] As a slow moving species S. pacifica are usually found attached and feeding decomposing vegetation and other detritus, consuming minute diverse particles conveyed by currents to downstream pools.

Although most species of shrimp walk slowly about the roots as they feed, S. pacifica will undertake short swimming bursts to obtain particularly desirable items.

A female can be expected to generate approximately 50 to 120 eggs per breeding season, which remain attached to the mother for the entire winter (most common in December and January).

[3] Conservation priorities for S. pacifica and associated native aquatic species include:[citation needed] There are individual efforts occurring in various stream segments, one of the most notable being Students and Teachers Restoring A Watershed (STRAW), a grassroots conservation program to restore over 1,400 meters (4,600 ft) of Stemple Creek by students at Brookside School in Marin County.

In this case students raised money, lobbied legislators and succeeded in obtaining grant funds to prevent cattle grazing within the creek, one of the greatest habitat threats.