The Mantis Shrimp has jumped up 254 slots to be my number #3 all time favourite animal. The stats on this little crustacean are phenomenal (selected from The Oatmeal):
- Whereas humans have three colour receptors (red, blue, green) the mantis shrimp has sixteen (!)
- it has two raptorial appendages on the front of its body which can accelerate at the same velocity as a gunshot from a 22-caliber rifle. In less than 3/1000 of a second it can strike a prey with 1,500 Newtons of force. To put that into perspective if a human could accelerate our arms at only 1/10 that speed we’d be able to throw a baseball into orbit…
- The force of this movement creates a process known as supercavitation: basically the water boils around them! Supercavitation bubbles are created which, when collapsed, produce a undersea shockwave. This is a double whammy in case the mantis shrimp’s aim is off…
- The high speed movement produces temperatures in the range of several thousand Kelvins and emits tiny bursts of light (an effect known as sonoluminescence)
- The shrimp are so aggressive that they are rarely kept in aquariums as they tend to slaughter every other creature they share a tank with, and their limbs are so strong that they can break the aquarium glass!
Those stats are even boggling this shrimps mind…
Anyway, here are some cool videos on the shrimp. First from National Geographic:
And here’s one destroying a clam…
And a brilliantly funny one from Zefrank:
How awesome is the designer of this animal :)
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