# Mantis Shrimp



## SpAzZy (Mar 30, 2004)

wussup guys,

i was wondering if anyone here has heard of these badboys or owns one themselves. i might very well be buying one very soon, they are sw inverts. it sounds like a wimp, but check these vids out.









Mantis Hunting/Eating Videos

EDIT: btw, the first two by grimreefers are the best IMO. check them all out though.


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## WolfFish (Jun 30, 2004)

I'd love a mantis shrimp, and i've seen another video from grimreefers of it annhilating a crab.


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## Raptor (Jan 3, 2003)

Yesthey are pretty wicked. I'd hate to see what they could do to a finger.


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## galland (Nov 7, 2003)

They are very dangerous. I had a 4" P. Ciliata that was a spearer. They have the knife blade claw. The others are smashers and use a club type claw. The peacock mantis gets about a foot long and can take a finger to pieces. Very cool but be careful. They have the fastest movement(strike wise) in the animal kingdom.


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

mantis shrimp kick ass
but too many people keep them on goldfish diets and they dont live that long
but they are the baddest shrimp ever


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## SpAzZy (Mar 30, 2004)

galland said:


> They are very dangerous. I had a 4" P. Ciliata that was a spearer. They have the knife blade claw. The others are smashers and use a club type claw. The peacock mantis gets about a foot long and can take a finger to pieces. Very cool but be careful. They have the fastest movement(strike wise) in the animal kingdom.


 if i'm not mistaken, peacocks grow to 6" max, and are the biggest of the mantis shrimp. yeh, the strike is nasty. same speed and impact as a .22caliber bullet supposedly. i may be getting one very soon, there is a lfs that is going to help me get one. we'll see what happens, i have a lot of plans for my other tanks right now and i'm not sure if i want to keep a saltwater tank just yet.


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## galland (Nov 7, 2003)

Do a search for "Stomatopods". See the Lurker website. A couple of peacocks on there are quite large. You might be able to find some monsters in the canals of Hawaii. Florida has some big ones too. The main guy of the site. Dr. Caldwell I believe will answer your emails and knows all about them.


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## Bluegill (Nov 28, 2003)

As I understand it, these shrimp can shatter the glass or acrylic walls of most aquariums.


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

What else do you feed it besides goldfish and cray? Are they hard to keep?


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## SpAzZy (Mar 30, 2004)

i don't have one myself, my friend does. and for the glass breaker, only one of the species can do that. it's a peacock mantis. those grow to be 6" or so and CAN break glass.. my friends is 2" or so, and he feeds it pieces of shrimp right now. seems easy enough to keep, but when you start feeding crayfish, cleaning will be a burden. but at least it'll be cool to watch.


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## Gumby (Aug 13, 2004)

SpAzZy said:


> and for the glass breaker, only one of the species can do that. it's a peacock mantis. those grow to be 6" or so and CAN break glass..


Actually there is a whole genus full of "smashers" who can break glass/fingers/shells. 
As previously stated, there are slicers and smashers. Slicers are mantis shrimp who's raptorial appendages have evolved into something similar to a blade. They use it to kill fish. The smashers raptorial appendage has a very tough bulbous tip on them. They use these tips for breaking the shells of crabs, shell fish, and boring though rocks.

I've kept a small smasher before, it was an interesting shrimp. I fed him turbo snails and ghost shrimp. Some people have trained their mantis to take prepared meats but it's a tough thing to do. I had a method of feeding that I used to trick my mantis. I'd get a piece of meat and put it on a thin wire and jiggle it outside the front of his cave and he'd attack it with a vengace and run off with it and eat it.

Keeping mantis shrimp has several downsides. One downside to keeping mantis shrimp is that, although they may be beautiful, you don't see them much. Another downside to keeping them is you really need to keep them in an acrylic tank. Once your mantis hits around 4-6 inches there's a good chance they can break your tank if they decide they want to. Also keep in mind that if you're cleaning the tank and you get too close to their cave entrance, they can split your finger in half with their raptorial appendages(smashers and slicers alike).

Interesting to keep but can also be very dangerous.

Here's some lower quality pics of the shrimp I kept in an Eclipse 6(considering starting the tank back up with another mantis):


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## JesseD (Mar 26, 2003)

> They have the fastest movement(strike wise) in the animal kingdom.


yep....about 75 ft/sec


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