Invisible Oceans Founder's Collection: Invisible Oceans #16: Stomatopoda I

Here we can see the huge raptorial limbs of the fearsome squillid mantis shrimps, sometimes referred to as 'lobsters', they are so big. The adults of some of these creatures can inflict a serious injury upon a human hand, with lightning speed that defies description. Close relatives of these 'lobsters', kept within large aquarium tanks, have been know to smash the glass, so powerful is their strike with those muscular forelimbs, used usually to stab, grab and retrieve fish that swim over their lagoonal burrows. The stalked eyes of these animals must be able to detect relatively good images of their prey, because they must extrapolate the speed and direction, in order to so accurately 'shoot-down' those fast moving forms of fish. We certainly know that the eyes of the adults are the most complex optical systems to be found in the entire animal kingdom.

Lizard Island, Australia (1986)

Nikon F2 | Custom Optics | Fuji Velvia