Aggressive mantis shrimp wash ashore on Delaware beaches after storm
Shannon Marvel McNaught, Delaware News Journal - 10h agoOut beachcombing or taking a look at conditions after the storm? Keep your distance from mantis shrimp, and make sure your pets do too.
A tub of mantis shrimp, a cross between prawns and lobsters.© Veronica Gould Stoddart,, USA TODAY
Many Delaware beaches, including Dewey Beach and Delaware Seashore State Park, reported mantis shrimp on their beaches Wednesday, and they're likely to wash up manybeaches after a storm. Also known as "thumb splitters," the aggressive crustaceans can easily injure a human or pet.
Though you never know what kind of marine life you'll find on the beach, the mantis shrimp species most seen on Delmarva (according to iNaturalist) is squilla empusa, the west Atlantic mantis shrimp. This species has "a pair of long, jackknife claws that resemble a praying mantis," which they use "to spear or slice through prey with a quick, slashing motion," according to the Chesapeake Bay Program.
"The strike velocity of a mantis shrimp’s large, powerful claws is one of the fastest movements of any animal on earth," the Chesapeake Bay Program's profile on the species says. "It takes a mantis shrimp less than 8 milliseconds to strike, which is about 50 times faster than the blink of a human eye."
Adult western Atlantic mantis shrimp grow to be about 8 to 10 inches long, according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. They can be found from Cape Cod to the Gulf of Mexico, as well as along the coast of Brazil and in the Mediterranean Sea, and favor muddy intertidal zones.
