Tiger Pistol Shrimp

• fisiologíaIt can snap one claw shut so fast that it creates a cavitation bubble, whose collapse gives off a crack and a flash of light, much as the mantis shrimp does.
• The shrimp, almost blind, keeps an antenna in contact with the goby at all times; if the fish senses danger and moves, both dart straight back into the burrow.
• The snapping of pistol shrimp colonies is one of the loudest sources of noise in the coastal ocean and interferes with sonar.
• It snaps its large claw shut at more than 100 km/h, generating a cavitation bubble whose collapse produces a crack of some 210 decibels that stuns its prey.
• The collapse of that bubble briefly reaches temperatures close to 5,500 °C and gives off a flash of light invisible to the naked eye, lasting between 300 picoseconds and 10 nanoseconds.
• It lives in obligate symbiosis with gobies of the genera Amblyeleotris, Cryptocentrus and Stonogobiops: the shrimp, which sees very poorly, digs and maintains the burrow; the fish keeps watch and signals danger with a flick of its fin.
• The partnership begins early in development and usually lasts for life.
• If it loses the claw, it grows back at the next moult.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - articulated calcareous exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat and environment

Sandy and rubble bottoms beside coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpheus_bellulus