Peacock Mantis Shrimp: Packs The Biggest Punch In The Natural World
Mantis Shrimp is an animal that lives in burrows, both in tropical and subtropical waters. The substance of the burrows depends on the type of mantis shrimp: spearing shrimp dwell in soft layers, smashing shrimp in harder substances, and grow to lengths of 2 to 7 inches. This species is not threatened and they weigh between 0.4 oz and 3.2 oz.
It is neither a shrimp or mantis. These creatures can detect more colour visions than anyone on earth and see polarised light. Their spring loaded clubs strike 50 times faster than we can blink, for a moment the surrounding water reaches the temperature of the surface of the sun.
Mantis shrimp are powerful marine crustaceans called stomatopods.They first appeared in the oceans millions of years ago, there are over 500 known species, almost all live in shallow, marine waters and most inhabit the tropics. They usually inhabit rocks or coral crevices or burrows excavated in the seafloor sediment.
Mantis Shrimp are highly efficient predators that feed on animals like fishes, crabs and shrimps and mollusks. They have special adaptations for hunting, the second pair of thoracic appendages are enlarged and modified as powerful raptorial claws that can extend rapidly, the raptorial claws can take two forms,depending on the species this divides mantis shrimps into smashers and spears.
Smashers have thickened, hard pads on their enlarged thoracic appendages that they use to strike at passing prey or rivals. Smashers tend to be more aggressive and they inhabit crevices instead of excavated burrows, they may fight each other for the best crevice. Smashers stalk prey like snails, crabs and clams.
Spear Mantis shrimps hunt by impaling their prey, the spear mantis shrimp have tough spines on their enlarged appendages instead of a hard pad. Some mantis shrimp pair for life and share the same burrow, others come together only at the time of mating. Female mantis shrimps produce an egg mass that may contain 50,000 eggs, they also guard their egg until they hatch.
Some of them have different names like:
Odontodactylus scyllarus
Lysiosquillina maculata
Oratosquilla oratoria
Gonodactylaceus ternatensis
Odontodactylus japonicus
Gonodactylus smithii
Squilla mantis
Squilla empusa
Lysiosquillina glabriuscula.
