By: Lain Patton | Viewpoints Editor
The sea is home to many bizarre creatures such as anglerfish, blobfish, sea pigs and many more. One of the most queer species to reside in the ocean is the mantis shrimp. This crustacean comes in many colors, with the peacock mantis shrimp showcasing every color of the rainbow on their body. They are typically two to seven inches in length, but are important predators in many tropic and subtropic aquatic habitats.
Due to their pincers, mantis shrimps are extremely powerful animals. The pincers of the mantis shrimp come in two forms: spearers and smashers. Spearers have claws lined with barbed tips, perfect for stabbing and slicing the soft-bodied prey like worms and fish. Smashers have clubs, hammer-like appendages that can punch prey at the speed of a .22 caliber bullet (Hurley, 2019). A punch from the mantis shrimp can break glass, break through a snail shell and completely knock the arms off of a crab. The punch is so fast that it creates a small flash of light and a superheated bubble born from the water vaporizing, which generates temperatures around 4,000℃ when the bubble collapses as well as a shockwave. Just to put that in perspective, the surface of the sun is around 5,500℃.
This is only the tip of the mantis shrimp iceberg. The eyes of the mantis shrimp –– some of the most complex eyes to exist in the animal kingdom –– are mounted on mobile stalks and can move independently of each other. Due to this extreme mobility, the shrimp can rotate its eyes in all three dimensions so it can quickly detect movement.
Each compound eye is divided into three regions, each with its own pseudopupil; the midband houses the 12-channel color vision while the dorsal and ventral regions provide spatial vision (Cronin, 2014). For humans, we have three color receptors that detect red, green and blue light. The mantis shrimp has 12 to 16 color receptors, meaning that this shrimp can see colors that humans cannot even comprehend.
On top of all of the mantis shrimp’s dynamic characteristics, they are extremely intelligent animals with complex social behaviors. Mantis shrimp have exhibited recognition and interaction with other shrimp, as well as ritualised fighting and protective behaviors. Many studies have been done to better understand the learning abilities of the mantis shrimp, one of which displayed mantis shrimp finding shelter in a black flask faster each time the shrimp was placed in the darkened tank with the flask (Reaka, 1980).
As for reproduction, mantis shrimp display further complexities with some species being monogamous and stay with the same partner for life. This means that the mantis shrimp couple will live together in the same burrow for up to 20 years (UCMP, 2009). Both sexes take care of the eggs and when a female lays two clutches of eggs, the male will tend to one while the female tends to the other.
Although small and festively colored, the mantis shrimp is nothing to fool with. With their strength, intelligence and eyesight, mantis shrimp can take on a battle with any living creature. They showcase the wonders of evolution, demonstrating the beauty and power hidden beneath the ocean’s surface.
Photo courtesy of Jens Petersen