Incredible Footage Captures a Tiny Shrimp Pulverizing a Rock-Hard Clam

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Nature is full of beauty and verdant wonder, but there’s a darker side. Just beyond the edge of the environment’s allure sits violence. Nature seems to love a good fight, and it doesn’t discriminate. It hosts fights of all forms, involving all shapes and sizes.

The ocean, the biggest and least explored layer of the planet, is likely hosting a multitude of fights like the one shown in the video above. Even though the mantis shrimp and clam are in an aquarium, the same merciless rules apply. But why are they fighting, and why does the mantis shrimp have a bone to pick with the unassuming clam? Watch the video above, and we will explore the topic further.

Rumble in the Aquarium

It seems nature was imbued with a pugilist spirit when it made the mantis shrimp. This carnivorous marine crustacean features a raptorial appendage that stuns, dismembers, or kills prey with a powerful punch. They aren’t technically shrimp either, but members of the Stomatopoda order. Characterized by 4- to 15-inch resplendent bodies, the mantis shrimp is one of the most important predators in its habitats be it shallow, tropical, or subtropical waters. Each type of mantis shrimp (of some 450 subspecies) is equipped with different deadly weapons. Some have spear-like arms while others have hammers. Despite being a common creature in its habitats, it often stays hidden in burrows. Scientists have little understanding of the mantis shrimp’s behavior, biological adaptations, and raison d’etre. That is, except for fighting.

The video above shows a mantis shrimp pounding at a clam until it cracks it open and drags it into its den. While mantis shrimp love a good brawl, even engaging in ritualized fighting amongst themselves, this mantis shrimp’s attack on the clam isn’t personal. Mantis shrimp love clam meat and will go to great lengths to get some without much trouble. A smasher mantis can punch with the same force as a 22-caliber bullet. A single mantis blow equals 15,000 newtons, resulting in a force more than 2,500 times the shrimp’s weight.

The clam may have a built-in fortress with its shell, but it stands almost no chance against a mantis shrimp. The force of a mantis shrimp “punch” is so powerful it could even break the glass on the aquarium in which these two creatures are brawling. Scientists have discovered that mantis shrimp punches don’t fail under pressure due to an impact-resistant nanoparticle coating. Comprised of a dense hydroxyapatite mineral, this coating rotates, fractures, and reforms in the blink of an eye. This allows the mantis shrimp to punch over and over. It also makes it the most fearsome creature in the shallow waters.

The Clam’s Defense

While the clam in the video above experienced its very own horror movie, utterly at the mercy of the offending shrimp, other clams have a defense mechanism that stops mantis shrimps in their tracks. Take the disco clam (Ctenoides ales), for example. This marine bivalve mollusk is named for the flashing light show its soft tissues emit. While it looks like bioluminescence, the disco clam’s nightclub lights result from highly reflective silica within its mantle.

This reflective silica is key to the disco clam’s defense. Unlike other clams at the mercy of a hungry mantis shrimp, the disco clam goes on the offense. When approached by a mantis shrimp, it opens its shell, exposing its disco-light tissue. If the mantis shrimp keeps up its attack, the sudden vibrant display of flashing clam tissue bewilders them. They stop in their tracks, even going into a catatonic-like state for up to 15 minutes. Despite mantis shrimp having up to 16 eye photoreceptors (humans have three), the colorful display is simply too much for them. It stuns them in a way that almost no other creature can.

Mantis shrimp are fearsome predators in their environment, and they aren’t picky about food. While they prefer hard-shelled mollusks for food, they are known to eat marine animals much larger than them. They’ll even eat poisonous squid that could kill human beings. There’s not much that can stop them, except for the little light show put on by the disco clam. It’s the only creature that stands a chance.