In the tropical oceans of the South Pacific lurks a predator that violently launches itself at its prey and pierces it with raptor-like blades. These animals are known to reach such high speeds that they can break aquarium glass. They are a crustacean commonly known as mantis, shrimp and belong to the phylum Arthropoda and the class Stomatopoda. They all have an exoskeleton, meaning their bodies have no internal bones for support. Other characteristics of arthropods are segmented bodies and bilateral symmetry. The exoskeleton is made up of chitin, lipids, carbohydrates and proteins. As arthropods, including mantis shrimp, grow, they produce a new, softer exoskeleton underneath the old exoskeleton and it must be shed or melted. The exoskeleton forms jointed appendages, such as antennae and legs, which allow movement and flexibility. Mantis shrimp are renowned for their unusual method of breaking the shells of their prey, bivalve molluscs, with short, powerful blows from their raptorial appendages (Patek and Caldwell, 2005). Mantis shrimp belong to the subphylum Crustacea and the class Malacostraca. The Malacostracans have a tripartite body; head, thorax and abdomen and pedunculated or sessile compound eyes. Other characteristics of Malacostraci are the two-chambered stomach and the centralized nervous system. The eyes of mantis shrimps are unique and are made up of three parts; a dorsal and ventral hemisphere separated by a central median band with three pseudo-pupils (Land, et al, 1990). Mantis shrimp are aggressive predators whose behavior is largely guided by vision (Caldwell and Dingle, 1976). Stomatopods are predators that hunt and kill animals. They attack and capture fish, molluscs and other crustaceans with...... middle of paper......Montana. Contributions to Zoology, 67, 155-186.Land, M. F., Marshall, J. N., Brownless, D., & Cronin, T. W. (1990). The eye movements of the mantis shrimp Odontodactylus scyllarus (Crustacea: Stomatopoda). Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 167(2), 155-166.Motoyama, K., Suma, Y., Ishizaki, S., Nagashima, Y., Lu, Y., Ushio, H., & Shiomi, K. (2008). Identification of tropomyosins as main allergens in Antarctic krill and mantis shrimp and characteristics of their amino acid sequence. Marine Biotechnology, 10(6), 709-718. Patek, S. N., & Caldwell, R. L. (2005). Extreme impact and cavitation forces of a biological hammer: impact forces of the peacock mantis shrimp Odontodactylus scyllarus. Journal of Experimental Biology, 208(19), 3655-3664.Piper, R. (2007). Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals. Greenwood Publishing Group.