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the mantis shrimp

The mantis shrimp: a punch like a bullet and eyes with 12 colour receptors

The mantis shrimp punches so fast the water around its club briefly vaporises and flashes with light.

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The real story

The peacock mantis shrimp stores energy in a saddle-shaped spring in its arm, latches it, then releases it. The club accelerates about as fast as a .22 bullet leaving the barrel and reaches around 80 km/h underwater. That creates cavitation: bubbles form in the low-pressure wake and collapse with a tiny flash of light and a burst of heat, hitting the prey a second time.

The club is a layered mineral composite that survives thousands of strikes, and engineers study it to design tougher armour. Its eyes are odd too: 12 kinds of colour receptors and 16 photoreceptor types, versus our three. Yet in tests it told similar colours apart worse than we do; researchers think it scans and recognises colours quickly instead of comparing them.

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The facts we checked

  • The peacock mantis shrimp strikes with clubbed arms that accelerate about as fast as a .22-calibre bullet — one of the fastest strikes in the animal world
  • The strike is so fast it makes bubbles that collapse with a flash of light and heat
  • Its eyes have 12 kinds of colour receptors (16 photoreceptor types in all; humans have 3), though tests show it tells similar colours apart worse than we do; big ones can crack aquarium glass

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