mantis shrimps : Crustaceans, Squid, Shellfish

landlocked · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:06 pm Post subject: mantis shrimps

has anyone had anything to do with them. i got one in a cast net last year and layed it in my palm to take a photo and it flicked its claw out and it went in about 1/2 inch. very stange creatures.

Chronic · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject:

Very weird looking, where did you get it??

landlocked · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:58 pm Post subject:

chronic i got in a little creek in the mcarthur river, first real one i have seen. didnt know they could spear you but i found out. thought they were an ocean thing. cheers

Andy Grey · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:01 pm Post subject:

Amazing animals.

Did it have the claw like a club? If so its a 'smasher' if it had the mantis like arms it is a 'Slasher'. Most common in the top end are the smashers you can hear them clicking in the rock pools around the reefs at low tide. They are super fast predators and a strike at prey can occur in less than 1/125th of a second, or 8 milliseconds, with the force of a small caliber bullet. It is one of the fastest animal movements known. The larger ones can be up to 36 centimeters in length. Commercial fisherman label the slashers as "thumb splitters", as many have found this by getting too close to one or inadvertently picking one up. We had one when I was working at Indo Pacific, I came in one day and it had smashed the tank.

Mantis shrimps are also sensitive to environmental pollutants and are good bio-indicators of pollution on coral reefs.

Dont put it in your fish tank!!

landlocked · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject:

it must have been a slasher andy, i head the click and felt the sting.
it was about 4 inches long.
it had spikes on the outside of its arms and flicked it outward.
goldies like em. revenge

Matt Flynn · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject: shrimps

I caught a monster of the slasher variety off Stokes Hill Wharf about 7 years ago. It had grabbed hold of a bit of squid. So much for pollution indicators!

dodgyone · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:57 pm Post subject: mantis shrimp

I can remember having one in a tank for a while when I was a kid. Used to put a wooden skewer down in front of its coral home and it would hit it with a loud 'crack'. Skewer came back shredded at the end. Not putting my hand anywhere near one. :wink:

landlocked · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:33 am Post subject:

dont blame you dodgy

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