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Netflixs action movieProject Powerhas given the world a new (if underwhelming) superhero the pistol shrimp.
Is the movies portrayal of underwater snapping accurate?
Should you be impressed by the minuscule crustaceans?
One claw is modified with a plunger that fits into a socket.
The jet is extremely powerful and causes the formation of a cavitation ring.
The likely physics of this are described very wellin this article.
When the mechanism is activated, there is averyloud popping or crackling sound.
Imagine how loud the sound would be if the shrimp were much larger!
But the glow is too faint and fast for us to see without the help of special instrumentation.
Pistol shrimp use their power defensively, and possibly also in competition.
What would human-sized pistol shrimp powers actually look like?
The problem is similar to that of movies about immense insects.
Is the pistol shrimp secretly the most powerful animal (by scale)?Hmmm.
Well, first of all, its power is no secret to those in the know!
As for power, there are many herculean lilliputians.
The mantis shrimp would be a marine contender for sure, especially the so-called smasher types.
Of course we all know about the seemingly disproportionate strength of ants and other small arthropods.
So really, because of the way scaling works, just being tiny makes amazing things happen.
Think of it like being born on the planet Krypton and then traveling to Earth.
Foxx is tired, basically dead, after doing his form of supercavitation.
Does the pistol shrimp suffer the same fatigue after using it?No,at least not right away.
They can snap multiple times in succession.
You said that pistol shrimp possibly use the power in competition.
The burrow is sexy.
And size is sexy.
Trying to invade a well-defended snapping shrimp burrow is like having a flash-bang thrown in your face.
For example, pistol shrimps exhibit extraordinary social awarenesses and propensities.
Some live in ant-like colonies.
Others live symbiotically with sea anemones.
Other pistol or snapping shrimps live in pairs, with fishes called gobies.
Is the pistol shrimps ability a well-known fact in the marine biology world?We love the buggers.
But like I said that isnt the only special thing about them.
They are everywhere in marine environments, especially in warm waters.
They live inside of other things, like corals and sponges.
They are eusocial pistol shrimps.
So, a period of experimentation followed by an explosively successful (many hundreds of new species) innovation.
One hypothesis is that the protective hood made the pistol possible by protecting the peepers.
There are two basic categories of mantis shrimp armament.
One punch in is called a spearer.
The end of their appendage is a sharp spear (needle-sharp!)
usually with lots of smaller needles behind it on the inside of the forearm.
The most spectacular of all is the rainbow smasher.
Smashers have a swollen elbow.
They swing their appendage forward with enormous velocity and hit something generally a snail shell with immense force.
We divers sometimes call smashers thumb-splitters.
You really do not want to be on their business end.
But still with opposable thumbs and a prefrontal cortex.
Kind of sounds like a parrot, no?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
