As this tiny little sea creature hits like Mike Tyson

Less than about a quarter of a centimeter long, the amphipod — a crustacean that looks a bit like a shrimp — lives a quiet life, passing through algae up and down the east coast. Well, that’s right superficially quietly, as scientists have just discovered. A male amphipod handles a massive claw that can exceed a third of its mass, and when it catches it in less than 10,000th of a second, it orders a jet of supercharged water to make its discomfort known. Thanks to a $ 150,000 camera that shoots at 300,000 frames per second, researchers have captured for the first time a male amphipod, a shot so violent that it is almost enough to the animal explodes.

You’re probably wondering how to experimentally fit a male amphipod, more specifically, the species Dulichiella cf. appendiculata. So I’ll tell you. Working in the lab, the researchers attached chopsticks to the animals ’backs and then attached the chopsticks to“ micromanipulators, ”devices that allowed them to accurately locate amphipods. All they had to do was hang hairs alone from a brush near the amphipods, violating their personal space. And then, SNAP. “So they clearly use it in an aggressive context,” says Duke University biologist Sheila Patek, co-author of the newspaper.

With the high-speed camera rolling, Patek and his colleagues suddenly made the invisible visible. “In a way, it’s almost magical,” Patek says. Previously, you could only hear or hear an amphipod fit if you had one in a tray, not if you had an eyeball in it. “But then, to focus on the whole issue and illuminate it all of a sudden, you can suddenly see this little appendix filling the screen, loading up, and then fitting in,” he says.

The critical piece of this appendix, more formally known as the gnatopod, is called the dactyl. In the image above, this is the long, leaf-like structure at the top of the claw. It is no thicker than a human hair. To hide, the amphipod contracts a muscle that returns this dactyl and stores an incredible amount of energy. Patek and his colleagues need to do more work to fully understand the morphology of how the bud works, but it’s likely that a latch will hold the finger in place. When the animal is ready to break, it releases the latch and suddenly releases the stored energy from the claw.

“And then when we looked even further, we said,‘ Wait, there’s one Jet ski get out of there! “says Patek. More specifically, the force of the claws pulling seems to push the water at an oblique angle, rather than perfectly right.” And then, oh, God, every now and then the jet water seems to provoke cavitation, which is the formation of these steam bubbles, which happens when a flow occurs at these extraordinary speeds ”. When these little cavitation bubbles collapse, they explode, triggering an explosion of energy. This type of force is so powerful, in fact, that when the propellers of ships create their own cavitation bubbles, over time the force chews the metal from the blade.