AAAS: “Snapping shrimp use headgear to protect their brains from shock waves.” The undersea world is ‘full of claws, sharp teeth and stingers.’ But snapping shrimp have another weapon: “To stun prey and fight one another for mates and territory, the tiny crustaceans shoot out high-speed jets of water that trigger supersonic shock waves with the snap of a claw.” These crustaceans are of the class Malacostraca and order Decapoda—related to crabs, lobsters + crayfish—decapodal means they have 10 walking legs. But why do they not succumb to the intense blast they generate? “It turns out that like professional football players, snapping shrimp shield their brains and eyes from concussive forces with protective headgear, according to a study published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.”
Scientists from the University of South Carolina and the University of Tulsa discovered snapping shrimp in the Alpheidaegenus have transparent hoods built into their exoskeletons that soften the impact to the crustaceans’ heads. The researchers “found that the hooded structure was half as stiff as the hard shell [exoskeletons], making it twice as effective at dissipating the stress from a blow as the hard shells.” Consistent with computer modeling, earlier behavioral experiments revealed that “shrimp with the shields were unharmed by shock waves, whereas shrimp without their hoods were disoriented and lost some of their mobility.”
Some obvious implications for protecting athletes in contact sports. My bias? Tennis + swimming are lifetime sports without risk of blunt head trauma.
