Bioceramics power the mantis shrimp's famous punch
Friday, October 19, 2018 - 23:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Researchers in Singapore can now explain what gives the mantis shrimp, a marine crustacean that hunts by battering its prey with its club-like appendages, the most powerful punch in the animal kingdom. They show that a saddle-shaped structure in the mantis shrimp's limbs, which acts like a spring to store and then release energy, is composed of two layers made of different materials.