The mantis shrimp is famous for striking prey with a club-like appendage at extreme speed.
Smashing mantis shrimp, also called spearers and smashers within the order Stomatopoda, use specialized raptorial appendages. Smashers have rounded clubs that accelerate rapidly and can fracture hard shells such as those of snails and crabs. The movement is powered by a spring-loaded mechanism rather than muscle contraction alone.
The strike can create cavitation bubbles in the water. When those bubbles collapse, they produce an additional shock effect, so prey may be injured by more than the direct blow. The impact is among the fastest movements known in the animal kingdom.
Not every mantis shrimp is a smasher: spearers use sharp appendages to impale softer prey. Mantis shrimp are also notable for complex eyes that detect polarized light and many color channels, although their visual abilities do not mean they see a simple extra set of human colors.