"The Magnificent, Ultraviolent, Far-Seeing Shrimp from Mars" (Wired Science)

Wired Science recently ran a fascinating article on the mantis shrimp, or stomatopod - which is neither a mantis nor a shrimp.

"Four hundred million years after bushwhacking its own evolutionary path out of the Cambrian, the mantis shrimp is one of the world's freakiest animals," reads the blog.

How freaky? Well, it sees something called circular polarized light - a form of light that no other creature on Earth can perceive...

The mantis shrimp single-clawedly expands the realm of possible visual perception by thirty-three percent.

(The other types of sight are black-and-white, color and linearly polarized.)...

"They're enchantingly violent, [said researcher Tom Cronin] in an affectionate, almost paternal tone. "They catch other animals by either spearing it through the heart or smashing it to pieces. Unlike most predators that grab prey, these pummel it and destroy it. When they interact with each other over a burrow, they use their armored front appendages and smash each other on the face. Whenever they get into any type of situation, they smash things. You can't pick these up. They're really great animals to have around."

[Mantis shrimp can break through aquarium glass with a single strike from their powerful claws, says Wikipedia.]

Cronin seemed especially pleased that the shrimps' visual uniqueness would return them to the record books. "The movement they use to hit prey used to be the fastest movement made by any animal," he lamented. "But it turned out there was a jaw-snapping behavior in an ant that's even faster."

Stomatopods only get about a foot long, but apparently can mutilate small appendages with relative ease. But don't worry too much about your small appendages on your next trip to the Jersey shore, because mantis shrimp mostly stick to the beds of tropical seas, like between Africa and Hawaii.