not sure if anyone has posted this yet....

mantis shrimp are feisty little critters that can take your finger off no problem. My friend had one and it lunged at him through the glass breaking it with it's club or spear.
They will attack anything...it could probably annihilate a baby shark. It's spear can penetrate human bones and club is bone crushing.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0723/

Oh and the link mentions something else:
In one of Jacques Cousteau's books, he detailed the experience of two of his divers as they were attacked while 'protected' in a shark cage underwater. But it wasn't the sharks who besieged them, rather a swarm of microscopic sea mosquitos that could've very well eaten the divers alive if given enough time......

Sounds tasty.

these things wont attack a human...and they cant take your finger off...i've seen these things all over the florida keys while diving for lobsters. They never even exit their burrowing holes.

They can't hurt sperm whales like Paul will say.

True, they won't attack humans, but try to grab at one or corner one.....they will ** you up. I have one now in a acrylic tank.... i love saltwater fish and got all different kinds. These thing will kill anything in their tank....... The most aggresive ones are the more exotic ones like from Thailand, Phucket, Patong...

This small crustacean is noted for its formidable claws. It is often called a "thumb chopper". It lives within the sandy bottoms of the bay in elaborate burrows. Its abdomen is often prized for its taste.
There are two main types of mantis shrimp: 'spearers' and 'smashers'. Both types strike by rapidly unfolding and swinging the raptorial claw at the prey. 'Spearers' have a claw lined with numerous sharp teeth and they hunt by impaling prey on these teeth. They usually feed on soft-bodied animals like worms, shrimps and fish. 'Smashers' have a claw shaped like a club, which they use to smash and hammer their prey. They usually feed on hard-bodied animals like snails and crabs. Both 'spearers' and 'smashers' have excellent binocular vision and many see in colour.
http://www.nightsea.com/mantis.htm

those look quite vicious....

Mantis Shrimp found in the muck of the Ala Wai Canal to grow larger than their normal size,
The largest shrimp weighed in at 1.35 pounds and 15 inches.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/...4/ln/ln01a.html

That is so awesome. Maybe a mantis shrimp would be a better avatar for the name 'angrycrustacean'.

Na, stay with the lobster in sombrero, much cooler

A ha ha....holy crap!!!, I forgot...I should've PMed you......but still the lobster rocks. LOL

Alright, Crusty shall remain in his place of honor.

My grandpa used to fish for those ones on a old lake, they were pretty nasty, when he grabbed them, they would try to attack him but he would always lock them in a 5 cm wood box.
They're very energetic, but out of water they aren't such a treath, all u need to do is grab them from their 'tail' and they wouldn't reach u. Still u can loose a finger, if u're not careful.

Are you sure we are refferring to the same critter, since you said "lake"? Are you sure that they wern't crawfish you are talking about?

no, they looked more like the mantis shrimp, and it wasn't really a lake, (i really don't know the word to describe that) it was more like a quiet course of dark water that was conected to the ocean, even tough the ocean was something like 3 kms away from my grandpa's secret fishing spot.

It could also be neither of them, who knows?

Sounds like a salt marsh to me.

how nasty!

Very interesting read.

Damnit, I hate those....We have a marine aquarium, and one mantis shrimp from hell somehow survived the curing process for live rock, so when we bought a piece of live rock, it hitched a ride to our aquarium!
We needed to get a trap...and finally caugh it, but by that time, I lost 5 hermit crabs, 1 peppermint shrimp, 2 emerald crabs, and a really beautiful cowrie

Damn you Mantis shrimps
There almost as bad as bristle worms...

Yum yum. Monster shrimp!

Two things:

Good story for my SCI essay
&
LOOKS YUMMY!!! lol

they're shrimp from hell!
They are pure evil....argh!

Beware of the killer shrimp.

popcorn? or batter dipped? yum but i guess it would reek havok on the old digestive system.

if you would WANt to eat that monster

I've seen this thing on TV a loooong time ago...

oh looks just dandy [attachmentid=19853]

[quote]In one of Jacques Cousteau's books, he detailed the experience of two of his divers as they were attacked while 'protected' in a shark cage underwater. But it wasn't the sharks who besieged them, rather a swarm of microscopic sea mosquitos that could've very well eaten the divers alive if given enough time......


Sea mosquitos???

God, they are everywhere!

Looks harmless to me..

Pepe` the king Prawn from Muppets.
"I AM NOT A SHRIMP! I AM A KING PRAWN! OKAY!!??!! HUH!? THEY GOT YOU CHESTER! HORRIFYING HOKAY!?!"

oh yeah! Mantis shrimp. Taste much better than lobsters!

Why are those things do mean, and why are the exotic breeds so much meaner. I know a guy that had to get stitches from one of those guys hitching a ride in live rocks.

Hey frogfish,
You have a saltwater tank so you know what I mean when I say, live rocks are too expensive! I spent $300 for 50 pounds of live rocks. Oh yeah and we went fishing i the Gulf of Mexico yesterday the bait shop accidently put a mantis shrimp ion to our bait bucket. it was a good 6 inches long. Good thing we spotted him before we reached in for a shrimp. he wasn't really aggressive though. The little mantis shrimp one i had in my tank killed two of my trigger fish, a clownfish, a pink square, mandarin goby, yellow tang, purple tang and he's just an evil mantis shrimp because he murdered all my fish overnite for fun and not to eat. I lost probably over $250 in fish because of the pshyco maniac. I got the mantis shrimp out of the fish tank and shot his ass to death with my paintball gun into tiny little pieces. He was pulp. then I sprayed him into the sewage drainage. lil bastard.

dont you think....it kinda overkill...
these are nasty little shrimps...

LOL... i was fair revenge i think...

you killed your shrimp?

that's dumb.

cook it in butter next time.

this mantis shrimps are quite nasty.... http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclope...ntis_shrimp.htm]
who wants a pet mantis

awwwww it looks well cute even if it could rip your fingers off by the way what do they eat

try the link at top

Dumb? Okay, thanks. Did you even read the story, or just the first sentence before your reply? Why is it dumb that a stray gulf mantis shrimp ( ugly brown) snuck into my tank and killed quite a few of my exotic fish? Sounds some that I would keep a worthless mantis shrimp that easily break my tank and kill my fish which has added up to over $1,000.00?

From Darkknight's source:
"Some mantis shrimp, which are sometimes kept as (A tank or pool or bowl filled with water for keeping live fish and underwater animals) aquarium pets, have managed to break through their double-paned aquarium glass with a single strike from the weapon. Smashers use this ability to attack and feast on (Freshwater or marine or terrestrial gastropod mollusk usually having an external enclosing spiral shell) snails, (Decapod having eyes on short stalks and a broad flattened carapace with a small abdomen folded under the thorax and pincers) crabs, (Invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell) mollusks and rock (Marine mollusks having a rough irregular shell; found on the sea bed mostly in coastal waters) oysters; their blunt clubs enabling them to crack the shells of their prey into pieces. Spearers, on the other hand, prefer the meat of softer animals, like fish, which their barbed claws can more easily slice and snag."


"Called "sea locusts" by ancient (An extinct language of the Assyrians regarded as a dialect of Akkadian) Assyrians, and now sometimes referred to as "thumb splitters" by modern (Someone who works underwater) divers - because of the relative ease the creature has in mutilating small appendages - mantis shrimp sport powerful claws, formed like (Click link for more info and facts about jackknives) jackknives, that they use to attack prey."

Oh yeah, Unpro....welcome to the UM i guess? Your name suits you very well there....

In Japanese cuisine the mantis shrimp is eaten as (Very thinly sliced raw fish) sashimi, and is called "shako."
sounds tasty

It does...sounds as good as unagi or unage.