Meet The Shrimp That Creates Shockwaves Hotter Than The Sun’s Surface — A Biologist Explains

Pistol shrimp measure only a few centimeters and spend most of their lives tucked in burrows or reef crevices.

They belong to the family Alpheidae and are known as snapping shrimp or cracking shrimp.

They have an asymmetrical claw; the larger claw is built for high speed and force and, when it snaps shut, ejects a high-speed jet of water.

That jet creates a rapidly forming and collapsing bubble; at bubble collapse a tiny flash of light is emitted, linked to sonoluminescence.

A 2001 Nature study showed the snap also produced light; researchers named the effect shrimpoluminescence, it was the first documented animal instance, and biologists had long assumed the snap was merely a mechanical impact.