Two short videos reveal just how awesome shrimp really are

Although mantis shrimp often end up in our dinner ingredients, these amazing little crustaceans are pretty cool.

Some types of mantis shrimp (like the peacock mantis shrimp pictured here) sport an amazing array of neon colours, but with these guys it goes far beyond just good looks. It's almost mesmerizing to watch their eyes move and twitch about, but the details of their eyes and their vision are remarkable. Also, despite their size, they can strike so hard with their claw that they're capable of breaking aquarium glass (if they put their mind to it).

Michael Bok, a post-doc at Lund University in Sweden, filmed a peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) in extreme closeup, as it moved its eyes about, showing off the intricate movements and multiple 'pseudopupils' (the dark spots):

With up to three pseudopupils on each eye, this gives the shrimp 'trinocular' depth-perception in each eye, according to Bok (humans and animals have binocular depth perception, and we need both eyes for it to work!). Being able to see into the ultraviolet spectrum (taking advantage of those neons) and having independent, superior depth perception in each of their eyes is

As for the mantis shrimp's feats of strength, Sam and Simon from Earth Unplugged try to capture the lightning-fast and incredibly strong punch of these shrimp on their high-speed cameras:

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I've always been more into physics and astronomy than any of the other sciences, but the vast array of life on our planet is so fascinating that it's great to be able to explore these wonders, even if we only do so from the comfort of our living rooms.

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