Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 15
An elegant marbled shrimp of the genus
Saron
uses brushlike cirri to snare its prey.
at Lembeh. It peered at me from its burrow in the sand through round
robotic eyes on stalks. Its thick claws, ending in bulges shaped like a box-
er's glove, were held at angles in front of its body like the claws of a praying
mantis.
By any name these shrimp are formidable customers, even though they
are only about twenty centimeters long. Their claws can snap forward at 80
kilometers an hour, moving so quickly that cavitation bubbles form in their
The claws are quite strong enough to crack a diver's face mask. Mantis
shrimp have even been known to blast their way out of glass aquarium tanks.
One assumes that the escapees enjoy a fl eeting moment of triumphant free-
dom before they expire on the aquarium fl oor.
My shrimp scuttled swiftly out of its lair to defend itself. I chose discre-
tion over valor and moved my vulnerable camera and facemask well back
from its claws, leaving the fi eld to this tiny action fi gure.
