---
title: Smashing Mantis Shrimp (Gonodactylus chiragra)
scientific_name: Gonodactylus chiragra
common_name: Smashing Mantis Shrimp
taxon: Mantis shrimp
published: 2023-12-24T21:58:50.372Z
updated: 2026-08-13T21:20:54.224Z
tags: Smashing Mantis Shrimp, Gonodactylus chiragra, Mantis shrimp, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/mantis-shrimp/smashing-mantis-shrimp
---

# Smashing Mantis Shrimp (*Gonodactylus chiragra*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Mantis shrimp (*Stomatopoda*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Depth:** 0-70 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Rubble and reef flats, in a burrow or a crevice
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- stout mottled green-brown body with a hard club on each raptorial limb
- eyes on stalks, moving independently of each other
- usually looking out of a hole in rubble
- length up to 10 cm

Ten centimeters (4 in) of armored shrimp looking out of a hole in the rubble, with two clubs folded under its head and a pair of eyes that track independently. Almost everything about this animal is a record of some kind.

The strike first. The club is thrown with a spring-and-latch mechanism rather than by muscle alone: the limb is cocked, locked, and released, and it accelerates as fast as a bullet leaving a gun. It moves so fast that the water behind it boils - a cavitation bubble that collapses with a second shock wave, a flash of light and enough heat to be measured. Prey is hit twice by one blow. Aquarium glass has been broken by animals this size.

The eyes are stranger. Each is mounted on its own stalk, moves on three axes, and is divided into three parts, so one eye alone can judge distance. They carry up to sixteen classes of color receptor against our three, including several for ultraviolet, and they detect polarized light - including circular polarization, which no other animal is known to see.

It eats snails, crabs and hermit crabs, cracking them open in the burrow. Do not put a hand into a hole in rubble: the strike is quite capable of laying a finger open, and this animal is not shy.

## Also known as

- **English:** Chiragra Mantis Shrimp
- **Japanese:** フトユビシャコ
- **Chinese:** 大指蝦蛄
- **Russian:** Гонодактилюс большой
- **TH:** กั้งตั๊กแตนเขียว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Squilla chiragra* Fabricius, 1781

## Range

Indian Ocean, Mozambique Channel, New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, South Pacific Ocean

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/mantis-shrimp/smashing-mantis-shrimp)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*