A Mantis Shrimp's Punch Is Hot Enough to Briefly Match the Sun's Surface

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The mantis shrimp is perhaps the most lethally equipped small animal on the planet. Its raptorial striking appendage accelerates at 10,000g — faster than a bullet leaving a rifle — and hits with the force of a .22 caliber round despite the animal being only 3 to 18 centimeters long. But the punch itself is only half the story. The strike moves so fast through water that it creates a cavitation bubble: a pocket of vacuum that instantly collapses when the appendage passes. That collapse releases a shockwave and generates temperatures of around 8,000°F — hotter than the surface of the sun, for a fraction of a millisecond. The result is that a mantis shrimp can effectively hit its prey twice: once with the physical strike and once with the cavitation shockwave. Prey can be stunned or killed even when the blow technically misses. The force is sufficient to crack the tempered glass of standard aquarium tanks; marine biologists who keep them use purpose-built polycarbonate enclosures. Mantis shrimp also possess 16 types of color receptors — more than any other known animal — allowing them to perceive wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared.