Australian Artemia (Shark Bay) were fed rice bran for 10 days, then fed purified astacene 6 days, then returned to rice bran for 6 days. Artemia were shown to be able to bioaccumulate astacene to the same extent as astaxanthin. While the occurrence of astacene may be the result of oxidation during the analysis, these results show that its occurrence may also be the result of bio-accumulation. No other pigments than astacene, echinenone and canthaxanthin were isolated from Artemia fed astacene.