Penaeid prawns (shrimps) are a high-value seafood commodity supporting large industrial-scale and artisanal fisheries around the world. This value, together with their predominantly tropical and sub-tropical distribution, has led to some prawn stocks being affected by overfishing and rising sea temperatures. Temperature is known to influence the life history of organisms, with the metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) and the temperature-size rule (TSR) both predicting warmer waters will cause ectotherms to grow faster, mature earlier, but reach a smaller size than they would in cooler waters. However, these predictions have seldom been investigated for penaeids, despite having implications for stock assessment and management, particularly in many tropical regions which are relatively data-poor. Here, I present some preliminary findings from my PhD research, in which I investigate the predictions of the MTE and TSR for penaeid prawns. A meta-analysis comprising of published life history data for 22 penaeid species (four genera) from around the world was used to evaluate how the life history parameters of penaeids vary with temperature (using latitude as a proxy), both between species and within species. This meta-analysis was then used to examine the predictions of two Beverton-Holt life history ratios; M/k and Lmat/Linf. These ratios suggest that some life history parameters vary predictably together and can be used to provide parameter estimates during stock assessment modelling. Understanding how life history parameters estimated from these ratios compare to the results of empirical studies from different regions and temperatures can facilitate discussion on the use of the Beverton-Holt ratios for informing stock assessments in data-poor penaeid fisheries.