Mantis shrimp, drawn from the specimen at AMNH. Not sure which species it is, I should check next time I go to the museum.
These guys have really amazing eyes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#EyesThanks for the submission Kora!
As you may have heard, we love mantis shrimp.
How dangerous are the strikes of common mantis shrimps to humans?
I handle stomatopods every day in our lab and when I’m in the field it is not uncommon to measure and sex 150 animals in an evening. Needless to say, I’m struck fairly often. Some species are far worse than others, but it usually hurts. Even a 2 cm Gonodactylus can draw blood and a 4 cm animal can drive the dactyl tips to the bone…But that is nothing compared to what happen to a diver from South Africa who wrote me a few years ago describing his attempt to grab by hand an 18 cm Odontodactylus. The animal severely injured his finger which became infected by a chiton-digesting bacteria. The infection did not respond to the usual antibiotics. In the end, they amputated the finger. Be careful out there!
| — | Dr. Roy Caldwell on the Mantis Shrimp FAQ (ht Metafilter) |
It is taking all my restraint not to post this entire comic. But I want you to visit The Oatmeal and experience all its riches, so: Why The Mantis Shrimp Is My New Favorite Animal.
If you haven’t clicked through yet, let me add a little incentive: a later panel of this comic contains the line “The mantis shrimp is the harbinger of blood-soaked rainbows.”
And if you would like to know even MORE about these miraculous creatures, we have a Radiolab episode for you, complete with a Mantis Shrimp choir.
Secret of Hard Hitting Crustacean Claws Found
by Stephanie Pappas
If sea creatures were Marvel comic book characters, the peacock mantis shrimp would be Thor. These colorful crustaceans have a hammerlike claw that can smash prey with the acceleration of a 0.22-caliber bullet — not unlike the superhero’s mythological weapon.
Now, a new study reveals the secrets behind the strength of the mantis shrimp’s claw at the molecular level. It turns out this appendage is ideally adapted to deliver punishing blow after punishing blow without breaking. These adaptations are already inspiring researchers to engineer biology-mimicking materials that could inspire everything from better boat propellers to safer body armor.
“What makes [mantis shrimp claws] so incredible is that they’re stiff and they’re also tough, which is really kind of an inverse relationship in materials science,” said study researcher David Kisailus, a materials scientist at the University of California, Riverside…
(read more: Live Science)
(photos: Michael Bok; T - Gonodactylus chiragra, B - G. platysoma)
More awesomeness from the mantis shrimp.
