Wonderful Wednesday everyone!
Today we are focusing on the Mantis Shrimp
These wonderfully rainbow shrimp may look like every Lisa Frank style elementary schoolers dream. However, quite on the contrary these animals are a horrifying beast of incredible power and violence.
See the anger in his eyes?
The mantis shrimp or the Stomatopod family are relatively small, only reaching 15 inches at the largest. Which is a wonderful thing for us all considering the crimes they would commit were they larger.
Mantis shrimp are well known for their powerful raptorial or front arms and their exceptional strength. Being so strong as to have cut through material of steel toed boots of fishermen on occasion. Mantis shrimp are known to have two methods of killing with these highly modified thoracic appendages. One being to smash the combatant or prey, and the other to spear and snag prey on small hooks. This makes them very adapted for close combat.
The other thing mantis shrimp are very well known for is their highly complex eyes. For context, we have 3 color receptors in our eyes as humans. That being, red, green, and blue. Which then make up all the rest of the colors we can see. We know that we can not see many many colors that exist, because our eyes physically can't process them. However, this is where the mantis shrimp becomes interesting. The mantid shrimp contains 12 color receptors in their eyes, which means we have no idea the colors they can see we can't even dream of.
I hope everyone has a good Wednesday!