The Power Of 10,000 Eyes!!
The Power Of 10,000 Eyes
Some animals have particularly strong
vision, while others have extremely sharp hearing or are experts in combat. But
the mantis shrimp- an obscure tropical crustacean-breaks one record after
another, and is stumping even the smartest of scientists.
The mantis shrimp, or stomatopod, is not a
sight that you quickly forget. Perhaps the creature's most striking features
are the two huge telescopic eyes atop its head, which can move independently of
each other, rotating a full 360 degrees. In fact, the mantis shrimp has 10,000
tiny eyes in all, with each set divided into three distinct segments, resulting
in trinocular vision that offers superb depth perception.
Using its amazing peepers, the mantis
shrimp can see colours that humans can't even imagine. The portion of the
visual spectrum that we can perceive-around 10,000 different colours and
hues-is peanuts to a stomatopod, which can even see the ultraviolet and
infrared spectrums. Those are optical skills that can outstrip even the most
sophisticated of telescopes.
And what does such a gifted animal do
with these skills, down there in the coral reef? Scientists believe that the
mantis shrimp's mating signals are transmitted across light waves that only
other mantis shrimp can recognise, helping to keep any romantic chit-chats
thoroughly private. And their talents don't end there. The order of the
stomatopod is divided into two military sub-orders: the smashers and the
spearers. The former specialise in knocking out their victims using their
club-like legs. The spearers, as their name suggests, stab unsuspecting fish as
they swim by, using a spiny appendage armed with a barbed tip.
The speed with which the mantis
shrimp stabs its prey deflects all logic. A spearer requires just 20 to 30
milliseconds to carry out its murderous acts, and yet the force of itsblow
could shatter glass. A smasher, a meanwhile, strikes with a force that's ten
times harder still, and also manages to bag itself the award for fastest punch
on the planet: Its devastating blows are unleashed at a feroclous 80km/h-with
no wind-up! And all this from those tiny joints in the mantis shrimp's front
legs.
The victim won't even register this
brutal attack: due to the speed of the blow, gas bubbles from between the
mantis shrimp and its prey and, as these bubbles implode, the resulting
shockwave hits its prey with the force of a 0.22 calibre bullet and mercifully
knocks the victim unconcious.
But the question remains: how can
such a small animal (which grows to an absolute maximum of 30cm across) expend
so much energy without snapping its own limbs? Well, US scientists recently
discovered that the mantis shrimp's club is covered in several tough layers,
ingeniously constructed so that they cushion any blows and prevent cracks.
"It's hard to know what the
world must look like to a mantis shrimp," says biologist Tom Cronin of the
University of Maryland. "They're animals that live by this motto: 'When
the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nall'. That's
their viewpoint. They have a hammer, and everything in the world is a nall to
them". It's a logical enough conclusion to reach, after spending millions
of years of evolving into the world's most perfect animal.
