Researchers are copying the crustacean to design new, stronger materials.
Mantis shrimp swing their arms out at 80kph when they punch.
That's about the same acceleration as a .22-calibre bullet. Luckily their club is stronger than the standard material used in aeroplane frames, so it can withstand it.
UCR / youtube.com
They can punch prey thousands of times without breaking their arms.
The force created by the impact of the mantis shrimp's club is more than 1,000 times its own weight. In fact, the crustaceans have to be kept in special tanks in the lab, because they'd smash through a normal one.
Flickr: silkebaron / Creative Commons / BuzzFeed
It manages this with a club made up of different sections, including one with a shock absorbing spiral pattern.
The blue part in this diagram is the hard outer layer of the mantis shrimp's club. Behind that is a region called the endocuticle, where fibre layers are arranged in a spiral pattern to act as a shock absorber. Each layer is rotated by a small angle from the layer below to eventually complete a 180-degree rotation.
Kisailus et al. / sciencemag.org
By copying this pattern, researchers could design new, stronger materials.
The materials would be useful for a variety of applications, including aeroplane and car parts and even body armour.
Kisailus et al. / sciencedirect.com
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