Growing to around the length of a butter knife, peacock mantis shrimp have rainbow shells—usually blue, green, and yellow—and red legs. Their purple eyes sit on top of stalks above their head ...

"In natural fights, we see mantis shrimp coil their tails in front of their bodies like a shield," says Green, who dubbed the behavior 'telson sparring' when he started studying shrimp fights ...

"In mantis shrimp competitors exchange bullet-like hits on each other's armored tail plates, or telsons, during fights over shelters," Green explained. Prior work had found that their exoskeletons ...

Mantis shrimp are truly spectacular predators of the marine world. Like a praying mantis, the mantis shrimp use a specialised pair of forelimbs to capture prey and are divided into the ‘spearers ...