11 Inch Mantis Shrimp .

[pkc]

Hi all.
A couple of us from the aandtsociety had a day off today and decided to have a snorkel.
Little did I know that I was going to be apart of a horror movie.
I was just going backwards and forwards from the bottom in around twenty eight feet of water in an area where I would normally find a sea horse or two on the sponges there, but instead I found a massive mantis shrimp digging for something (maybe a crab).

I took a short film of it and before I could get ready to take a better one it came up at me as I had gotten a bit to close, so I swam up and it turned back so I got the blunt edge of the knife quickly under it to carefully coax it up to the shallows and it got one jab in through my glove before I let it go , which was fair enough considering what I was making it do.

The second short film is of swimming with a mantis shrimp (that I assume is a rarity) as it tries for another spiking.
http/s678.photobucket.com/albums/vv146/AandTpics/mantis/

 

[Ahoy89]

... I would have been straight out of that water!

I'm pretty sure I have arachnophobia as I can not tolerate the sight of spiders or pretty much anything like that with big legs. When I was the museum with my friend we were in the bug section and we were joking about how we should run off with the honey the bees had been making and sell it to the supermarket then I noticed something above me in the corner of my eye, looked up and there is a gigantic model spider perched in a big web!! Yes it was a model and I really did feel sick over the thought of it! I just wanted to get out of the room knowing that was above me! I can't even touch pictures of spiders in books!

I think you are very brave, I probably would have froze up in the water and have to be rescued!

 

[kewskills]

I love mantis Shrimps, not sure i wanna get tagged by one though

 

[bae1994]

did you catch it then if so what did you do with it

 

[simonas]

I can;t believe it became the aggressor!!

 

[kj23502]

wow what an experience that would've been!!!!!

 

[seffieuk]

Oh my word jolly interesting though

Seffie x

 

[SkiFletch]

You tried to coax an 11" long mantis shrimp?!?!? *shudder* Not something I would do