hitchhiker question

[poo-tang]

i recently got a serpent star 1 month ago...a purple one...i just noticed 3 tiny serpents in my tank they are all white. i have had this tank for 4 months and have never noticed them. are they common hitchhikers or did this come from my star i bought possibly.
also do they eat shrimp? i lost both of my shrimp pep and cleaner one 2 wekkes ago and i haven't seen the pep in 3 days. everything i have read says they normallly are reef safe?

[LeslieH]

Very common in rock. Sometimes when I do a rock dip or deoxygenation in the field I'll get thousands of these little brittles climbing out of the rock.