Darkness Under the Sea

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickcollier/5446443473/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pacificklaus/4852217254/

These colorful, pretty creatures are called mantis shrimps, more specifically peacock mantis shrimps . There are actually around 500 species of mantis shrimps of different shapes, sizes, and colors. They have 16 color cones, while us, humans have three. These other 13 colors cannot even be processed by our brains.

 I really, really want one as a pet not because of the colors, but because these amazing Mantis shrimps with amazing brains are dark, violent creatures that can break aquarium glass with their little claws and are also sometimes called "prawn killers" and "thumb splitters". Most of them live in Indian and Pacific Oceans between east Africa and Hawaii, and a number of species, not the peacock mantis shrimp, have been found in the marine environments of Singapore. (Scary...) I would love to see them in action in the aquariums, but unfortunately, it will kill anything sharing a tank with it and probably break the glass and escape. I never even knew that these existed until I read a comic on the Oatmeal. Don't you want to find out more?

This is a video on National Geographic of a mantis shrimp hunting a crab.