Pistol Shrimp With a Gun?!

Of course the high temp doesn't last long with the bubble being so small and the whole of the ocean to rapidly cool it/dissipate the heat.

 

Isn't that cavitation? Similar to what happens when a mantis strikes.

 

They are thought to have relatively poor eyesight but are not blind.

 

Yes the acoustic energy is largely derived from cavitation. When in the process of closing its claw, a cavitation bubble is created by a jet of water that is expelled from a socket in the claw. The bubble subsequently collapses. Causing the loud popping noise.

 

That's why I refuse to believe they are predators. Sure they will kill and eat something that wonders into their den, but to go out and catch a cleaner shrimp like the video? It's not like you can use a sense of smell for hunting quick animals. Sure a mole can do it, but grubs and worms are extremely slow.

posted with tapatalk please ignore bad spelling and grammar

 

Wow you guys are a bunch of haters.

They are not saying the shrimp holds the power of the Sun... They are simply saying that the 'shot' (audible to us) is so powerful it creates a small air bubble underwater which dissapates creating a shockwave. The power needed to actually create an airbubble underwater via kinetic energy isn't something done lightly. The fraction of a second those temperatures exist are so fleeting that to our corporeal existance, it seems trivial or non-existant. But it is there, if only for 0.00000000000000000000012 seconds (or whatever it is).

THEY DO HUNT WITH THE SHOCKWAVE. Within 10 days of putting the pistol in the tank, he took out 5 fully grown pepperment shrimp. I now feed him ghost shrimp regularly. I add shrimp, I hear the clicks at night, no more shrimp... once all shrimp 'dissapear' within a few days, very few 'shots' ever fired.

I have also seen him use the 'shots' in his excavation efforts trying to break small peices of rubble.

I have no data for this, but I personally believe that the pistol also uses the 'shot' as an echoing device, trying to figure out if its rocks or just sand ahead of him in his digging path...

I believe this was the initial evolutionary path that created this behavior, and then only later it was used for hunting purposes... either way, they use it for both.

 

Believe it or not I actually had a neighbor find several at the beach in Miami Florida and while sitting at his dining room table we could hear clearly the pistol shrimp's blazing gun.... amazing !

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Not sure if you read this.When in the process of closing its claw, a cavitation bubble is created by a jet of water that is expelled from a socket in the claw. The bubble subsequently collapses. Causing the loud popping noise
Also:written by Scott W. Michael in Aquarium Fish International-The snapping behavior is thought to serve a number of different functions,in part depending on the snapping shrimp species in question.At least some of the predatory alpheids use the snapping ability to stun there prey. They have been known to incapacitate small fish (e.g. gobies) and eat them. They will also snap when driving off intruders or when jostling with conspecifics over a mate.It has been suggested that some species may even use the driving force produced during rapid claw closing to make holes in coral rock to burrow.

 

Just because something has relatively poor eyesight doesn't mean it can't be a predator. If I listed every animal on the planet with relatively poor eyesight that in fact predates I could fill half a page. Usually these animals make up for there lack of eyesight with other hightened senses.Whether you refuse to believe it or not the study done that I quoted actually witnessed these shrimp hunt and kill small gobies.

 

A cavitation bubble is just a phrase to describe changing pressures creating an air bubble in fluid which then implodes, sending out the shockwave. The shrimp does not squirt a jet of water... he simply snaps his massive claw shut so fast that the displacement sends water shooting away, so fast that that the pressure changes imedietely in front of the claw create the air bubble, which implodes and creates the shockwave that the pistol takes advantage of. Even if the claw itself didn't 'create' the bubble, the reaction takes place because of the antecedant of the claw closing.

In Air sound travels @ 343 meters a second
In Saltwater sound travels @ 1560 m/s

Thats 4.5 times faster because the water in which the sound travels is packed so much tighter with mass than air. The effects of the shockwave are that much more damaging to lifeforms. Imagine a 'shockwave' of wind coming @ you @ 20mph, now imagine a wave coming at you at 20 mph... which will hurt more? I have heard tale of Pistols in the hand snapping and the shockwave feels like a hard rubber band hit (in air) ... now imagine that 4 times stronger (just an estimate) and how hard it would feel if your entire body was close to the size of the shrimp...

Actually just talked to my girlfriend who works at a LFS, she got hit by a pistol in her finger underwater and she said it split it (broken skin bleeding) and bruised it as well.

Interesting speculation on the burrowing into coral using the shockwave.