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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

‘Helmets’ shield shrimp from their own supersonic shock waves

The snapping shrimp’s headgear is the first known biological armour that protects against blasts.
The bigclaw snapping shrimp Alpheus heterochaelis on a black background.

A translucent ‘helmet’ on the bigclaw snapping shrimp’s head shelters its brain from the shock waves generated by its claw-snapping. Credit: Kingston et al., Current Biology

Snapping shrimp, although tiny, can generate shock waves that travel through the water at supersonic speeds. Researchers now show that the crustaceans protect their brains from these blasts with special ‘helmets’ — the first known biological armour against shock waves1.

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Nature 607, 215 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01832-7

References

  1. Kingston, A. C. N., Woodin, S. A., Wethey, D. S. & Speiser, D. I. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.06.042 (2022).

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