I’m Never Going Back In The Water
Posted by Qais Fulton
Having spent my formative years in a beachside community I’ve had ample opportunity to be exposed to all manner of the strange and wonderful wildlife that inhabits the sea. I realize that sometimes when the world of men and the briney deep interact one risks injury to varying degrees. But generally, the creatures of the ocean that can really hurt you, that want to really hurt you, tend to advertise their malice by looking exactly like something that can, and will, ruin your day.
But shrimp? Shrimp?!
Shrimp are things they serve children in restaurants, battered and fried and innocuous as the day is long. Shrimp are supposed to sit politely on the rims of cut-glass cocktail sauce bowls, waiting to fulfill their tasty purpose, not chew off my god damn toes when I step into the water. My reaction may seem somewhat alarmist, I admit, but the sea and I have a history of violence.
The first attack on my dainty feet came by way of a horseshoe crab when I was a youngster, but they’ve got fairly obviously dangerous tails and you should watch where you walk on a beach full of horseshoe crabs. It couldn’t have been a barb purposefully aimed at my tiny pink appendages, could it?
I think the video above speaks for itself, my friends. I’m declaring war on the ocean.
Mantis Shrimp [Dark Roasted Blend]
Categories: Fuck the Ocean, Shrimp
Posted at 1:36 pm on July 21, 2008
21 Comments -
I first stumbled upon this amazing creature when you ran a mimic octopus video a while back.
I am pleased to announce that your fear is wholly unfounded because it is not a true shrimp.
However, not only can he spear you with more force than a .22 pistol, he has the most advanced eyes in the entire animal kingdom to track down and hunt your fleshy morsel-bits. He also goes by the nickname thumb-splitter.
Comment by Matt — July 21, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
While on the subject of shrimp that will fuck you up if you happen to be a small crab, I add this video about the the badassness that is snapping shrimp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONQlTMUYCW4. They stun or kill their pray with blasts so powerful the cavitation bubble left behind reaches the temperature of the surface of the sun when it collapses. Oh cruel fate bestowing such gifts to shrimp. Why can it not be I who holds such power in my oversized claw?
Comment by BearsAssaultedByBasil — July 21, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
I join This War. I’ve Seen What The Ocean Houses And Although it May Be Amazing, … It Also Scares The Ever loving Crap Out Of Me. Look What These Monsters have Done, They’ve Taken Something As Harmless And Innocent As A Little Bubble And Made A Weapon Out Of It!
Comment by Rune 101 — July 21, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
I already knew my fear of the deep was legitimate, I don’t need additional fodder! Damnit.
(thanks for sharing)
Comment by Willow — July 21, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
And my fiance loves to make fun of my fear of lobsters.
Comment by Tracy — July 21, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
They say the sea is a womb. It is where we begin.
I say it is a vagina dentata
Comment by Neil — July 21, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
I propose an Ectomo clam bake.
Right on beach. Surely the sight of this blogs readership pearched at the edge of the briny will send a clear message to the deep dwellers as we knock back countless of their vanquished brethren.
We are not afraid.
Comment by P — July 21, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
I second this. We cannot let these fuckers keep us from enjoying the briny deep, Fulton. Perhaps eltiburo can help us, he’s a goddamn shark after all. We can throw some of the bastards back to him after we’ve battered and fried them up.
Comment by Ross Rosenberg — July 21, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
“They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.”
I’d say old Mister Lawrence had a point.
Comment by scott — July 21, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
I, for one , welcome our shrimp-like overlords with their mighty devistating, cavitating bubble technology! Does our nuke technology even stands a chance?? I think not!!
Comment by BobDog — July 21, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
Mantis Shrimp, although beautiful, are mean little buggers.
There’s actually two main varieties, the one up above is nicknamed the ‘thumb splitter’… you can guess why. The other kind replaces the concussive hammers with a spine for piercing it’s prey.
I’ve heard of people agitating the mantis shrimp into ‘knocking’ on the glass and shattering it.
Comment by Chiablo — July 22, 2008 @ 2:21 am
Your zeal is admirable, comrade Fulton, but too general. If we’re going to defeat the stomatopods once and for all, the cephalopods are our only hope.
Comment by Angry Sam — July 22, 2008 @ 5:48 am
I’d like to eat one of these just to show them who is the boss … but I’m actually quite scared.
Thanks for posting the video.
Comment by Hororo — July 22, 2008 @ 6:12 am
Yes yes but is it edible?
Comment by phrawgg2 — July 22, 2008 @ 9:02 am
Amazingly enough these little buggers didn’t make the list of deadliest animals based on number of deaths per year.
http://www.nature-blog.com/2007/12/worlds-most-dangerous-animals.html
-Aza
Comment by LordAzathoth — July 22, 2008 @ 10:15 am
The conspicuous omission of vampire bears and hover manatees make me question the veracity of that list.
Its a cover-up.
No one expects the mantis shrimp.
Comment by P — July 22, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Your war against the Neptunian depths has good historical company. Caligula, the mad Emperor, waged a war against the English Channel.
He claimed victory, but as this horrible mantis shrimp can attest, there is a growing unrest amongst the residents of the besieged region.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/59*.html#25
And while fascinating, I must posit that the cephalopods are not to be trusted. Their intelligence is too keen and foreign for us to fully comprehend and their ambition too great. If they saw our weakness in defending all the True, Right vertebrates and oxygen lovers, they would surely attack without mercy.
No, to win this battle we must go it alone.
Comment by Krister — July 22, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
Yup, mantis shrimp can shatter the glass of an aquarium and i’ve also had them break plexi-glass feeding sticks when they get too excited about eating. When they are under the UV light of an aquarium though, their beauty can not be surpassed due to their dichroic coloring.
Comment by omino — July 24, 2008 @ 12:13 am
Yes, they are edible. They are known in coastal southern China as “pissing shrimp” because if you boil them while still alive, their bladder will empty in your cooking pot (you are supposed to kill them first, let them drain somewhere else, and then boil them). They supposedly taste like a poor man’s lobster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Cookery
Also, they have been mutating in Hawaiian canals — some reaching the size of a man’s arm. http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Feb/14/ln/ln01a.html
And when two of them ended up in a coral shipment to an unsuspecting aquarium, they essentially destroyed the place by killing fish and crustaceans, shoveling around rocks to make burrows, and all around being terrible roommates. The keepers couldn’t find them for months because they didn’t know they were there. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/04/MN112063.DTL
Beautiful but deadly horrors of the deep…ah…
Comment by TE — July 25, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
“Video no longer available” :(
Comment by Evil Jim — July 26, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
yoiks.. are you guys sure that isn’t an actual alien? It’s ever so pretty and ever so lethal:)
Comment by Andy — July 27, 2008 @ 11:40 am