This may look like a plump tasty prawn ready for the barbie and it is... but it's a mere shrimp next to this prawn, which is the same type and age.

But the new prawn with the brawn hasn't just happened, it's the product of science.

Only two thousand tonnes of prawns are farmed in Australia each year compared to the twenty thousand tonnes trawled, mainly for the domestic market.

But these cultivated Kuruma prawns can fetch much more than your average raw prawn on the overseas market. Prices have reached up to 180 dollars a kilo in Japan, where they are considered the champagne of prawns.

So with the co-operation of local prawn farmers, CSIRO scientists set out to develop a better quality Kuruma prawn.

Prawns from the wild were studied and their DNA used to select size and suitability to various environments. Then to further enhance the growth rate of the prawn, the genetic markers, which pointed to the high growth potential of particular individuals, were identified for breeding.

The result, already tested in farm trials, is a prawn which matures three weeks earlier or else grows up to 25 per cent larger than a conventionally bred farmed prawn.