The shrimp with a bubble hotter than the sun
This tiny shrimp stuns its prey with a bubble hotter than the surface of the sun.
Which one is REALLY true about the Pistol Shrimp?
The short version
The pistol shrimp snaps its claw so fast it creates an exploding cavitation bubble that hits nearly 5,000°. The snap is loud enough to jam a submarine's sonar.
You could line up about 24 of them along a 7-year-old!
Why it's so weird
- ✓The Pistol Shrimp snaps its claw fast enough to create a bubble nearly as hot as the surface of the sun.
- ✓The Pistol Shrimp makes a collapsing bubble that briefly reaches almost 5,000 degrees.
- ✓The Pistol Shrimp fires a shockwave loud enough to stun fish and crack glass.
- ✓The Pistol Shrimp can, in colonies, be loud enough to jam a submarine's sonar.
The full story
This tiny shrimp can stun its prey using a bubble that is hotter than the surface of the sun. Meet the pistol shrimp. It has one oversized claw that it snaps shut so unbelievably fast that it creates a tiny low-pressure bubble, and when that bubble instantly collapses, it briefly reaches almost five thousand degrees. That is nearly as hot as the surface of the sun, and it even gives off a small flash of light. The snap also makes a shockwave so loud that it can stun or kill small fish on the spot, and it can even crack aquarium glass. Whole colonies of them are loud enough to interfere with submarine sonar. It is basically a finger gun that genuinely works. Nature looked at a shrimp and handed it a sound cannon. Follow for more weird animals.
Here's the surprise: it's not the claw smacking shut that makes the bang. When the claw snaps closed, it squirts out a jet of water so fast that the water pressure inside the jet drops, and the water boils into a tiny vapor 'bubble' even though it's cold. A heartbeat later that bubble collapses and crushes the vapor inside so hard and so fast that it briefly heats to almost 5,000 degrees, flashes a speck of light, and bangs out a shockwave. So the heat, light, and loud crack all come from the bubble popping, not from the claw itself.
📚 Source: Unveiling the physical mechanism behind pistol shrimp cavitation (Scientific Reports, Nature) ↗Scientists tethered snapping shrimp in a tank next to an underwater microphone and filmed the snap with an ultra-high-speed camera (about 40,000 frames per second), and the slow-motion footage showed the loud crack and flash happening when the cavitation bubble collapsed, not when the claw closed.
📚 Source: Snapping Shrimp — Scientific American ↗Check what you learned
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“The Pistol Shrimp snaps its claw fast enough to create a bubble nearly as hot as the surface of the sun.”
“The Pistol Shrimp hunts with its eyes, ears, and nose shut, using 40,000 sensors in its bill to feel the electric pulses of its prey.”
“The Pistol Shrimp makes a collapsing bubble that briefly reaches almost 5,000 degrees.”
Watch the 45-second version
Pistol Shrimp gallery
