Imagine one of the fastest movements in nature, quicker than a blink of an eye. Meet the mantis shrimp, a colorful ocean creature that might just be the coolest animal in the sea. These shrimp can swing their clubs at speeds up to 31 meters per second, with an acceleration comparable to a bullet leaving a gun. To break the same shells that a mantis shrimp can, a human would need a large hammer and a strong swing. Yet, a mantis shrimp does it with an appendage smaller than a child’s pinky finger.
Mantis shrimp are part of a newly described category in nature: the ultrafast. This group includes creatures like trap-jaw ants and stinging jellyfish, all known for their incredible speed. Fishermen and aquarium owners know well the power of these shrimp, as they can punch through thick glass and are formidable tank mates.
These shrimp are fierce carnivores. Interestingly, the fastest species hunt slow creatures like snails, while slower species target fast prey like crabs and octopuses. Their eyes are the most complex in the animal kingdom, with 12 to 16 types of photoreceptor cells compared to our three. They can see ultraviolet and polarized light, and their eyes process visual information before it even reaches their brain. Scientists are exploring whether these eyes could detect cancer early.
Mantis shrimp are small, colorful crustaceans living in tropical waters. They belong to the order Stomatopoda, which diverged from other crustaceans around 400 million years ago. Over time, some of their mouthparts evolved into raptorial claws, giving them a predatory look similar to praying mantises.
There are two main types of mantis shrimp: spearers and smashers. Spearers, like the zebra mantis shrimp, use their claws to ambush prey from sandy burrows. Their spears shoot out at 2.3 meters per second, impaling fish on sharp spines. The design of their claws allows them to slice through flesh and hold onto prey.
Smashers, on the other hand, have clubs instead of spears. These clubs can reach speeds of 31 meters per second, with forces greater than a .22 caliber bullet. They create cavitation bubbles, which release energy in the form of sound, heat, and light, stunning their prey a second time.
Mantis shrimp have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. They have trinocular vision, allowing them to gather a vast amount of information. Their eyes can detect polarized light and have 12 to 16 kinds of photoreceptors, compared to our three. This unique vision helps them be effective predators.
The mantis shrimp’s adaptations have inspired innovations in various fields. Materials scientists study their claws to develop strong yet flexible materials. Engineers have created robots mimicking their punching ability, and researchers in optics have developed cameras based on their eyes, potentially useful in detecting cancer.
The ocean is full of incredible diversity and discoveries waiting to be made. The mantis shrimp is just one example of the fascinating creatures that inhabit our seas, showcasing the wonders of evolution and the potential for scientific innovation.
Research other animals that belong to the ultrafast category, such as trap-jaw ants and stinging jellyfish. Prepare a presentation that compares their speed and mechanisms to those of the mantis shrimp. Highlight how these adaptations benefit their survival and ecological roles.
Create a physical or digital model of a mantis shrimp, focusing on its unique anatomical features like its raptorial claws and complex eyes. Use this model to explain how these features contribute to its hunting prowess and survival in its natural habitat.
Conduct an experiment to explore the concept of polarized light. Use polarized lenses to observe different objects and discuss how the mantis shrimp’s ability to see polarized light might give it an advantage in its environment. Document your findings and share them with the class.
Participate in a debate on the evolutionary adaptations of the mantis shrimp versus other marine creatures. Discuss which adaptations are most advantageous and why. Use evidence from the article and additional research to support your arguments.
Design a simple engineering project inspired by the mantis shrimp’s claw mechanics. Consider how this natural design can be applied to create a tool or device that mimics its strength and speed. Present your design and explain its potential applications in real-world scenarios.
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
—
[Music] This is one of the fastest motions in nature—faster than the blink of an eye, faster than your naked eye can even see. These colorful creatures are called mantis shrimp, and they might just be the coolest animals in the entire ocean. If the speed of their clubs, which can reach up to 31 meters per second, isn’t impressive enough, the acceleration of those clubs rivals that of a bullet being fired from a gun. To break the same shells that a mantis shrimp can, a human would need a large hammer and a strong swing. A mantis shrimp can achieve this with an appendage smaller than a small child’s pinky finger.
Mantis shrimp belong to a category of the natural world that has only recently been described: the ultrafast. Forget about the fastest human or even something like a cheetah; those don’t even register on the ultrafast scale. Instead, it’s populated by extraordinarily fast creatures such as trap-jaw ants, ballistic termite jaws, and stinging jellyfish. Fishermen working around shallow reefs have attested to the damage a mantis shrimp can do to their bare hands and feet, and aquarium owners must be especially careful not to annoy these powerful little friends. Mantis shrimp can sometimes punch through extremely thick glass and will decimate any other animals living alongside them in a tank.
These agile fighters are among the most ferocious carnivores in the ocean. Curiously, the fastest species among them prey almost exclusively on the slowest creatures, like snails and oysters, while the slower species go for the fastest prey, snatching creatures two or three times their size, including crabs and octopuses. Not only are mantis shrimp extremely fast at punching and stabbing, but their eyes are also the most complex in the entire animal kingdom. While humans have three types of photoreceptor cells in our eyes, mantis shrimp have between 12 and 16 types. They can see ultraviolet light and polarized light, and their eyes are so advanced that their retina processes visual information before it even reaches their brain. Scientists are beginning to explore whether mantis shrimp eyes could even detect cancer before it starts to spread.
What is it about these little creatures that makes them so fast, so ferocious, and so extreme? How do these obscure crustaceans harness the laws of physics in ways we have never been able to replicate? Mantis shrimp are small, colorful, and aggressive crustaceans that live in tropical and subtropical waters. For all that, they are usually only about 10 centimeters (4 inches) long; the very largest might grow to 40 centimeters (15 inches). They belong to the order Stomatopoda, which separated from other crustaceans around 400 million years ago. Over the next 200 million years, the shrimp-like ancestor of modern mantis shrimps had some of their mouthparts morph into raptorial claws, giving them the predatory appearance of praying mantises, from which they took their name.
These types of mantis shrimp are classified as spearers, and their deadly claws shape everything from the way they hunt to how they live. Take the world’s largest mantis shrimp, for example: the zebra mantis shrimp can grow up to 40 centimeters in size and hunts as an ambush predator, living in sandy burrows on the shallow sea floor, with only its eyes poking out as it waits for its prey. It’s nearly impossible for fish to see the zebra mantis shrimp hidden in the sand, and by the time it strikes, it’s too late for escape. The spears shoot out at a speed of 2.3 meters per second, impaling the fish on ten sharp spines that jut out from its claws.
In one experiment, researchers found that most zebra mantis shrimp strikes were successful in capturing fish. But if you’ve ever tried to trap a fly with your hand, you might imagine how hard it is to snap up prey and hold on to it. How do they do it? First, there is the raptorial claw itself, designed to be strong yet flexible, allowing it to slice through soft flesh and hold on while the fish tries to escape. The spear has several spikes that are slightly hooked, with hollow beams made of several layers. On the outside is a thin, hard, mineralized epicuticle decorated by serrations and grooves to lock onto its prey. On the inside is a less mineralized region with fibrous layers of chitin protein to allow for flexibility.
Unlike something like a bee stinger or a mosquito proboscis, which are straight to maximize penetration, the mantis shrimp’s spearing claw is curved, helping it maintain a hold on its prey. To understand more about the ecology of mantis shrimp, we spoke with Dr. Maya DeVries, who has spent years studying them both in the lab and in the field. When capturing them in the field, researchers take advantage of their prey mechanism by putting squid or fish on a lure to lure them out of their burrows.
The next element of the spear’s strike is how it achieves such high speeds. First, flexor and extensor muscles in the claw are engaged. The extensor muscles compress the claw while the flexor muscles trigger a latch to lock it in place. When the flexor muscle relaxes and the latch slips open, the claw strikes out at incredibly high speeds while the mantis shrimp lunges out of its burrow with a fish now trapped in its claws, dragging its meal back into the sand to feast.
We couldn’t resist asking Dr. DeVries a burning question: Have you ever been speared? Thankfully, she said, “Never!” Mantis shrimp live in the sand, making it easy for them to move from one place to another. This means they tend not to be very aggressive when it comes to defending their homes; it just isn’t worth the risk of injury. However, this is absolutely not the case for another type of mantis shrimp—the ones with incredible smashing claws.
Somewhere along their evolutionary path, a small subset of mantis shrimp changed from being spearers to smashers. Instead of growing terrifying spines from their raptorial claws, these shrimp developed clubs that look much less formidable. However, looks can be deceiving, as these clubs achieve some of the fastest speeds in nature. While the zebra mantis shrimp can extend its spear at a speed of 2.3 meters per second, smashers like the purple spot mantis shrimp extend their clubs at a speed of 31 meters per second, with an acceleration of well over 100,000 meters per second squared—greater than a .22 caliber bullet fired from a pistol. Their clubs can produce around 1500 Newtons (340 pounds) of force, with impact forces thousands of times greater than their body weight.
When scientists first studied the impact forces of these punches, something unusual appeared in the force graph. There was one spike for the punch, as expected, but another spike occurred soon after. Reviewing the footage revealed a bubble forming and a flash of light. They realized that the mantis shrimp’s club was bouncing back after hitting the shell so fast that it created a small area of extremely low pressure, causing the water to vaporize—this creates a vapor bubble called a cavitation bubble. However, this bubble doesn’t last long; the surrounding water pressure forces it to collapse, releasing energy in the form of sound, heat, and light. This energy can heat up to temperatures that rival the surface of the Sun, stunning the mantis shrimp’s prey a second time and creating that second peak on the graph.
To understand this phenomenon, we spoke with Dr. Sheila Paddock, who first discovered it. She described the experience of seeing cavitation bubbles for the first time as thrilling, noting that it was likely the first time anyone had seen it due to the technology available at the time. Researchers believe that mantis shrimp have evolved to cavitate effectively, as they consistently do so at the right moment.
Given how different the attack is for smasher shrimp compared to their spearer relatives, their prey is also very different. Smashers tend to eat things with hardened exoskeletons, like oysters and snails, where extreme force is necessary to crack them open. The cavitation bubbles are definitely helpful, but this seems like a counterintuitive evolutionary result: the fastest animals prey on the slowest. However, this is likely not a coincidence.
A hint as to why this paradox exists can be seen while watching a smashing mantis shrimp prepare to break a shell. First, it touches, wiggles, and positions the shell exactly where it wants it. It taps the shell with its antenna, seems to wait a moment, and then strikes. The key is in that moment of waiting, which allows the smashing mantis shrimp to be so fast. During this time, the shrimp is winding up, spring-loading its claw to an extraordinary degree. The spring, shaped like a saddle and made of chitin, sits on top of the claw. Just before the strike, the shrimp’s muscles compress it and hold it back with a latching mechanism. When it’s time to strike, this potential energy is released, and the club swings forward.
This saddle spring mechanism allows the club to be released at an enormous velocity, much higher than any muscle could produce alone. The spearing mantis shrimp also has a saddle like this, but it’s much less effective. The easiest way to understand it is by comparing the performance of throwing an arrow versus launching one with a bow. Just throwing the arrow with your arm muscles won’t make it go very far or fast, but using those same muscles to flex a bow and then release the arrow makes it go much farther and faster, even though the energy input is the same.
Many people think mantis shrimp are very powerful animals that use a lot of energy, but they actually use very little energy and release it over short periods of time, which is very explosive. The design of their raptorial claw is also quite different from that of spearers, as the club must withstand immense forces repeatedly. The exterior of the club is covered by a crack-resistant coating, similar to the tape boxers use for binding their hands. Underneath that coating are two regions with fibers aligned in different directions: one area dissipates cracks while the other prevents the club from expanding on impact.
All of this means that the shrimp can batter away on a clam shell or even a glass aquarium wall without damaging its claw. Mantis shrimp have a very good sense of the three-dimensional structure and mechanics of the shells they hit, and they will strike at the most efficient structural locations to break them. For example, they will hit high-spired shells or globular shells differently, and physical models of mantis shrimp show that their sequence of strikes is the most efficient for breaking those geometries.
Smasher mantis shrimp hunt prey that live on rocks and coral, and their clubs come in handy for more than just hunting. By having that powerful appendage to break open snail shells, they gain access to food, but it also allows them to use it for other purposes, like knocking out a crab. Some species of smashing mantis shrimp even build burrows with their hammers by breaking apart coral to create a perfect little house inside, providing a nice protected home.
They prefer hard substrates for their burrows, meaning real estate is at a premium. The burrow needs to be big enough for them to fit but small enough that they can block the entrance with their tail. This leads to regular fights over burrows, which can get very aggressive. One group of researchers found that sparring strikes actually pack more energy than strikes used for predation.
We asked Dr. Paddock if there are any occupational hazards when handling these creatures. She noted that while you do have to be careful, the bigger problem is that they have a spike at the end of their appendage, which can be unpleasant if it goes into your skin. However, she emphasized that it’s pretty rare for anyone to have a serious problem. Most stories about injuries involve people who were diving and stuck their hand down a hole, leading to an unfortunate encounter.
Mantis shrimp have incredibly hard armor over their bodies, especially their tails, which protects them from fracturing even when they take heavy blows. It’s clear that the different types of raptorial claws play a huge role in determining everything about the mantis shrimp’s lives. However, it’s not only their claws that dictate much of their behavior; their eyes do as well.
Mantis shrimp are often said to have the most complex eyes of any creature in the animal kingdom, which makes them appear quite alien. These eyes help them be effective predators. They have two eyes that move independently, and each eye has trinocular vision. While humans have binocular vision, mantis shrimp have trinocular vision, allowing them to take in an incredible amount of information, likely improving their targeting success.
The three regions of the eye have pseudo-pupils that can scan different parts of the environment, but the mid-band is particularly interesting to researchers. It has six rows of thousands of ommatidia, or photoreceptor cells, used to detect specific wavelengths of light, including ultraviolet light. Altogether, mantis shrimp have 12 to 16 kinds of photoreceptors in their eyes, while humans have just three, dogs have two, and birds have four, allowing them to perceive ultraviolet light, which is not part of the visible spectrum for humans.
Interestingly, scientists have found that mantis shrimp aren’t particularly good at discriminating between colors. In one experiment, researchers trained ten mantis shrimp to recognize ten different color wavelengths ranging from 400 to 650 nanometers. They found that while the shrimp could detect differences in color, they struggled to distinguish between wavelengths that were only 12 to 25 nanometers apart. In contrast, humans can differentiate millions of colors and have little trouble seeing between wavelengths that are only five nanometers apart.
Researchers hypothesize that each photoreceptor in a mantis shrimp picks up a specific color and identifies it in a less discriminating way than the human eye, allowing them to quickly determine if something is a predator or prey. Their vision processing may work more like our processing of hearing, which is more stepwise and on/off, while our vision is continuous.
Mantis shrimp can also detect polarized light, a special skill among animals. Normally, light wavelengths vibrate in every direction, but polarized light vibrates in only a certain direction. Mantis shrimp can see six types of polarization, including horizontal, vertical, two diagonals, and two types of circular polarization. They are the only animals known to see circularly polarized light, which may help them scan their surroundings for prey and communicate with each other.
Mantis shrimp can process much of this visual information before it even reaches the part of their brain that acts as a visual cortex, thanks to a structure called the reniform body. This kidney-shaped structure is located in the eye stalks of the mantis shrimp and connects directly to their brain, helping them quickly process color and other visual information.
The incredible adaptations of the mantis shrimp have not only astonished zoologists and anatomists but have also spurred innovations in various fields. Materials scientists are particularly interested in mantis shrimp claws to develop strong yet flexible compounds. Others have built a small robot that mimics a smasher mantis shrimp, capable of punching faster than any similar device of its size, though still not as fast as the mantis shrimp itself.
Researchers working in optics have modeled different types of cameras after mantis shrimp eyes, creating polarized cameras for underwater use and cameras that might help detect cancerous cells before they spread. Research is ongoing, with many more discoveries to be made. Recently, researchers discovered that mantis shrimp have twice as many light-detecting proteins in their eyes as previously expected. The reason for this is still unclear, but it offers another exciting direction for exploration.
The ocean is full of incredible diversity and discoveries waiting to be made, especially in the deep sea, a place that captivates our imagination with creatures that sometimes look too bizarre to be real. These deep-sea creatures will be the focus of our next video, where we will explore why creatures seem to get weirder the deeper you go in the ocean. To watch this video right now, head over to Nebula, where we are launching a feature called Nebula First. Every real science video is posted on Nebula two weeks before it reaches YouTube. Nebula is a streaming platform created by me and several other educational YouTube content creators, allowing us to take more risks, upload videos early, and post original content that doesn’t necessarily fit on YouTube.
There are many original series on Nebula, including “Becoming Human,” which tells the incredible story of human evolution, “Joe Scott’s Mysteries of the Human Body,” which explores baffling diseases and epidemics from history, and “Wendover Productions’ Extremities,” which shows why and how people live in Earth’s most isolated and extreme settlements. Nebula has even produced a feature-length film called “Night of the Coconut” and an award-winning play called “The Prince,” which you can watch in its entirety on Nebula.
Now, if you sign up using the link below, subscribers also get access to Nebula Classes, where you can watch dozens of in-depth classes from creators teaching you how to create. Nebula is a gold mine for fun and educational content, all with no ads. If you sign up using the link below, you can support this channel directly and get both Nebula and Nebula Classes for 40% off the annual plan for just $30 for the entire year.
—
This version removes any inappropriate or sensitive content while maintaining the informative nature of the original transcript.
Mantis – A type of marine crustacean known for its vibrant colors and powerful claws used for hunting prey. – The mantis shrimp is renowned for its ability to strike with incredible speed, making it a formidable predator in the ocean.
Shrimp – A small, swimming crustacean with a long body and a primarily marine habitat, often serving as a crucial part of the oceanic food chain. – Shrimp play a vital role in the ocean ecosystem, providing a food source for many larger marine animals.
Speed – The rate at which an object moves, often measured in meters per second in physics. – The speed of light is a fundamental constant in physics, crucial for understanding the behavior of electromagnetic waves.
Eyes – Organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons, essential for vision. – The compound eyes of insects allow them to detect movement with remarkable precision.
Evolution – The process by which different kinds of living organisms develop and diversify from earlier forms during the history of the earth. – The evolution of the giraffe’s long neck is often cited as an example of natural selection.
Predators – Organisms that hunt and consume other organisms for food. – In the ocean, sharks are apex predators, playing a critical role in maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems.
Claws – Curved, pointed appendages found on some animals, used for grasping or tearing. – The mantis shrimp’s claws can strike with the speed of a bullet, making them one of the fastest movements in the animal kingdom.
Vision – The ability to see; the faculty of sight. – The mantis shrimp has one of the most complex vision systems in the animal kingdom, capable of detecting polarized light.
Ocean – A vast body of salt water that covers almost three-quarters of the earth’s surface. – The ocean is home to a diverse range of life forms, from microscopic plankton to the largest whales.
Crustaceans – A large class of arthropods, which includes crabs, lobsters, and shrimp, characterized by a hard exoskeleton and jointed limbs. – Crustaceans are an essential part of the marine food web, serving as both predators and prey.
