The Power of Mantis Shrimp Strikes: Interdisciplinary Impacts of an Extreme Cascade of Energy Release

In the course of a single raptorial strike by a mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda), the stages of energy release span six to seven orders of magnitude of duration. To achieve their mechanical feats of striking at the outer limits of speeds, accelerations, and impacts among organisms, they use a mechanism t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Integrative and comparative biology 2019-12, Vol.59 (6), p.1573-1585
Main Author: Patek, S. N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biomechanical Phenomena
Crustacea - physiology
Energy Transfer
Interdisciplinary Research
Predatory Behavior - physiology
S3 Playing with Power: Mechanisms of Energy Flow in Organismal Movement
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Summary:In the course of a single raptorial strike by a mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda), the stages of energy release span six to seven orders of magnitude of duration. To achieve their mechanical feats of striking at the outer limits of speeds, accelerations, and impacts among organisms, they use a mechanism that exemplifies a cascade of energy release—beginning with a slow and forceful, spring-loading muscle contraction that lasts for hundreds of milliseconds and ending with implosions of cavitation bubbles that occur in nanoseconds. Mantis shrimp use an elastic mechanism built of exoskeleton and controlled with a latching mechanism. Inspired by both their mechanical capabilities and evolutionary diversity, research on mantis shrimp strikes has provided interdisciplinary and fundamental insights to the fields of elastic mechanisms, fluid dynamics, evolutionary dynamics, contest dynamics, the physics of fast, small systems, and the rapidly-expanding field of bioinspired materials science. Even with these myriad connections, numerous discoveries await, especially in the arena of energy flow through materials actuating and controlling fast, impact fracture resistant systems.
ISSN:1540-7063
1557-7023
DOI:10.1093/icb/icz127