Mantis shrimp

Mantis shrimp are marine crustaceans belonging to the order Stomatopoda, one part of the class Malacostraca, the largest class of crustaceans. They are neither shrimps nor mantids, but receive their name purely from the physical resemblance to both the terrestrial praying mantis and the shrimp. They may grow to a length of 20–40 cm <ref name="Hawaii">James Gonser. "Large shrimp thriving in Ala Wai Canal muck", Honolulu Advertiser, 2003-02-14.</ref>, although most species are considerably smaller, and their carapace covers only the rear part of the head and the first three segments of the thorax. Mantis shrimp appear in a variety of colours, from rather dull browns to stunning neon.

Called "sea locusts" by ancient Assyrians, and now sometimes referred to as "thumb splitters" by modern divers - because of the relative ease the creature has in mutilating small appendages - mantis shrimp sport powerful claws, formed like jackknives, that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning or dismemberment. Some pet mantis shrimp have managed to break through their double-paned aquarium glass with a single strike from this weapon.

1 Ecology
2 Classification and the claw
3 The eyes
- 3.1 Reasons given for powerful eyesight
4 Behaviour
5 Cookery
6 Aquariums
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Ecology

These aggressive and typically solitary sea creatures spend most of their time hiding in rock formations or burrowing intricate passageways in the sea-bed. They either wait for prey to chance upon them or, unlike most crustaceans, actually hunt, chase and kill living prey. They rarely exit their homes except to feed and relocate, and can be diurnal, nocturnal or crepuscular, depending on the species. Most species live in tropical and subtropical seas (Indian and Pacific Oceans between eastern Africa and Hawaii), although some live in temperate seas.

[edit] Classification and the claw

Around 400 species of mantis shrimp have currently been described worldwide, which are commonly separated into two distinct groups determined by the manner of claws they possess:

Image:Squilla mantis.jpg

spearers are armed with spiny appendages topped with barbed tips, used to stab and snag prey and some have a blunt, calcified club on the elbow
smashers, on the other hand, possess a much more developed club and a more rudimentary spear (which is nevertheless quite sharp and still used in fights between their own kind); the club is used to bludgeon and smash their meals apart. The inner aspect of the dactyl (the terminal portion of the appendage) can also possess a sharp edge, with which the animal can cut prey while it swims.

Both types strike by rapidly unfolding and swinging their raptorial claws at the prey, and are capable of inflicting serious damage on victims significantly greater in size than themselves. In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 10,400 g and speeds of 23 m/s from a standing start. Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface. The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produce measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1500 N that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface. Which means the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the even bigger force from the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follows.

Smashers use this ability to attack snails, crabs, molluscs and rock oysters; their blunt clubs enabling them to crack the shells of their prey into pieces. Spearers, on the other hand, prefer the meat of softer animals, like fish, which their barbed claws can more easily slice and snag.

A mantis shrimp, housed at the Sea Life Centre, Norfolk, England, shattered quarter-inch-thick glass at its enclosure in 1998. The 4-inch shrimp was relocated to a private tank, and nicknamed Tyson.

[edit] The eyes

"It's been blowing us away for years how complex the stomatopod visual system is. There's no question this is the most complex eye in the animal kingdom. It has the same capability in the ultraviolet alone that we have in normal light."
—Roy Caldwell, UC Berkeley

The front of Lysiosquilla maculata, showing the stalked eyes

Mantis shrimp are the only animals with hyperspectral colour vision. Their eyes (both mounted on mobile stalks and constantly moving about independently of each other) are similarly variably coloured, and are considered to be the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom <ref>"Mantis shrimp have the world's most complex colour vision system." - Justin Marshall, University of Queensland</ref>. They permit both serial and parallel analysis of visual stimuli.

Each compound eye is made up of up to 10,000 separate ommatidia of the apposition type. Each eye consists of two flattened hemispheres separated by six parallel rows of highly specialised ommatidia, collectively called the midband, which divides the eye into three regions. This is a design which makes it possible for mantis shrimp to see objects with three different parts of the same eye. In other words, each individual eye possesses trinocular vision and depth perception. The upper and lower hemispheres are used primarily for recognition of forms and motion, not colour vision, like the eyes of so many other crustaceans.

Rows 1-4 of the midband are specialised for colour vision, from ultra-violet to infra-red. The optical elements in these rows have 8 different classes of visual pigments and the rhabdom is divided into 3 different pigmented layers (tiers), each adapted for different wavelengths. The three tiers in rows 2 and 3 are separated by colour filters (intrarhabdomal filters) that can be divided into four distinct classes, two classes in each row. It is organised like a sandwich; a tier, a colour filter of one class, a tier again, a colour filter of another class, and then a last tier. Rows 5-6 are segregated into different tiers too, but have only one class of visual pigment (a ninth class) and are specialised for polarisation vision. They can detect different planes of polarised light. A tenth class of visual pigment is found in the dorsal and ventral hemispheres of the eye.

The midband only covers a small area of about 5-10° of the visual field at any given instant, but like in most crustaceans, the eyes are mounted on stalks. In mantis shrimps the movement of the stalked eye is unusually free, and can be driven in all possible axes, up to at least 70°, of movement by eight individual eyecup muscles divided into six functional groups. By using these muscles to scan the surroundings with the midband, they can add information about forms, shapes and landscape which can not be detected by the upper and lower hemisphere of the eye. They can also track moving objects using large, rapid eye movements where the two eyes move independently. By combining different techniques, including saccadic movements, the midband can cover a very wide range of the visual field.

Some species have at least sixteen different photoreceptor types, which are divided into four classes (their spectral sensitivity is further tuned by colour filters in the retinas), twelve of them for colour analysis in the different wavelengths (including four which are sensitive to ultraviolet light) and four of them for analysing polarised light. By comparison, humans have only four visual pigments. The visual information leaving the retina seems to be processed into numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system, greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels.

[edit] Reasons given for powerful eyesight

The eyes of mantis shrimp may make them able to recognise different types of coral, prey species (which are often transparent or semi-transparent), or predators, such as barracuda, which have shimmering scales. Alternatively, the manner in which mantis shrimp hunt (very rapid movements of the claws) may require very accurate ranging information, which would require accurate depth perception.

The fact that those with the most advanced vision also are the species with the most colourful bodies, suggests the colour vision has taken the same direction as the peacock's tail.

During mating rituals, mantis shrimp actively fluoresce, and the wavelength of this fluorescence was shown to match the wavelengths detected by their eye pigments <ref name="Hawaii"/>. Females are only fertile during certain phases of the tidal cycle; the ability to perceive the phase of the moon may therefore help prevent wasted mating efforts. It may also give mantis shrimp information about the size of the tide, which is important for species living in shallow water near the shore.

Another theory is that the invertebrate brain is unequipped to analyse all the incoming data in real time and so the processing is performed physically by the eye.

[edit] Behaviour

Mantis shrimp appear to be highly intelligent, are long-lived and exhibit complex behaviour, such as ritualised fighting. Scientists have discovered that some species use fluorescent patterns on their bodies for signaling with their own and maybe even other species, expanding their range of behavioural signals. They can learn and remember well, and are able to recognise individual neighbours with whom they frequently interact. They can recognise them by visual signs and even by individual smell. Many have developed a complex social behaviour to defend their space from rivals.

Image:Mantisshrimp24.jpg

In a lifetime, they can have as many as 20 or 30 breeding episodes. Depending on the species, the eggs can be laid and kept in a burrow, or carried around under the female's tail until they hatch. Also depending on the species, male and female come together only to mate or bond in monogamous long-term relationships.

In the monogamous species, the mantis shrimp remain with the same partner for up to 20 years. They share the same burrow, and there are reasons to suspect that these pairs can coordinate their activities. Both sexes often take care of the eggs (biparental care). In Pullosquilla and some species in Nannosquilla, the female will lay two clutches of eggs, one that the male tends and one that the female tends. In other species, the female will look after the eggs while the male hunts for both of them. Once the eggs hatch the offspring may spend up till three months as plankton.

Most stomatopods display the standard locomotion types as seen in true shrimp and lobsters. One species, Nannosquilla decemspinosa, has been observed flipping itself into a crude wheel. The species lives in shallow, sandy areas. At low tides, N. decemspinosa is often stranded by its short rear legs, which are sufficient when the body is supported by water. The mantis shrimp then performs a forward flip, in attempts to roll towards the next tidepool. Caldwell once observed an N. decemspinosa to roll repeatedly for a total of six feet.

[edit] Cookery

In Japanese cuisine, the mantis shrimp is eaten as sashimi and as a sushi topping, and is called shako (蝦蛄).

In Cantonese cuisine, the mantis shrimp is a popular dish known as "pissing shrimp" (濑尿虾, Mandarin pinyin: lài niào xiā, modern Cantonese: laaih niuh hā) due to its tendency to urinate when cooked. Because of this, mantis shrimp are speared to induce them to evacuate their bowels prior to being introduced into the cookpot. After cooking, their flesh is closer to that of lobsters than that of shrimp, and like lobsters, their shells are quite hard and require some pressure to crack.

There are health concerns associated with consuming mantis shrimp, as the shrimp is known to dwell in contaminated waters, this is especially true in Hawaii where some have grown unnaturally large and are being consumed by poorer people. <ref name="Hawaii"/>

[edit] Aquariums

Many saltwater aquarists are currently caring for stomatopods across the world. In fact, some are even making vital discoveries of the behavior of certain species as well as defining certain aspects of others. These dedicated aquarists may play a major role in understanding the many mysteries involving the mantis shrimp.