Introducing the badass Peacock Mantis Shrimp!

This colourful weirdo is called Odontodactylus scyllarus aka the peacock Mantis shrimp. Despite being a beautiful creature it is one of the most strangest and dangerous little killers in the Ocean.

It's two great assets are it's eyes and... punch! It's eyes are probably the most advanced and complex in the animal kingdom with each compound eye operating independently and seeing in trinocular vision. It also possesses twelve different light sensitive pigments (four times more than human eyes) meaning it can see a much wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum than we can.

They also have a strange weapon - a double club to smash up it's prey and any other mantis shrimps it might dislike. These clubs can accelerate at a speed similar to a bullet and they hit so hard it can vaporize water and cause flashes of light. Mantis shrimps in captivity will often brake the aquarium glass as well as kill anything else in the tank.

These assets combined with their lighting quick reflexes and intelligence make them on of the most accomplished and formidable small predators in the sea.

I met this one on the reefs of Gilli Meno in Indonesia, I had never seen them before but was lucky enough to spot three on our last snorkel when sun was just going down. :)