You may not have missed this, but I certainly did. If it wasn't for a friend at work, I never would have known about this shrimpy dynamo.
First, the cartoon.
Now, a short film:
First, the cartoon.
Now, a short film:
This all came up because a couple of mantis shrimps seem to have found their way into the Monterey Bay Aquarium, just on the other side of the bay on which I live. My friend was highly amused that the best plan for catching this creature, which can punch through aquarium glass and devastate a fish tank, not to mention see a specturum of colors that is about five times what we humans can see, apparently involves using a set of tongs...
I quite like the image of blood-soaked rainbows. I don't like shellfish, however, and not just species that could throw baseballs into space or dismember me with the speed of a bullet.
ReplyDeletePeter, you remind me that I should pass along the update my friend gave me that the mantis shrimp was in fact extricated with the tongs, probably by someone with the courage of ten.
ReplyDeleteI actually couldn't watch the second video at the end of the cartoon, but I imagine it shows how lethal this creature is.
I just got an idea for a traditional mystery in which the killer offs the seafood-loving victim by mixing anaesthetized mantis shrimp into his plate of the conventional kind. It would work only if the victim had monochromatic colorblindness, though.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I wouldn't trust those things even if they were dead.
ReplyDelete