A miniature smasher, mature at around 5 cm (2 in), mottled green with pale banding on the legs, living in holes barely wider than a pencil. Everything the larger species do is here at a fraction of the scale, including the club strike, which loses none of its speed with size - a small mantis shrimp accelerates its weapon just as violently, it simply delivers less energy at the end.
It occupies cavities in coral rubble from about 1 m to 15 m (3 to 50 ft) and is active by day, though seeing one takes deliberate looking at broken ground rather than a casual glance. The species was described in 1998 and honours Roy Caldwell, whose work on stomatopod behavior is the reason much of what this page says about strikes and burrow contests is known at all. Records from this sea rest on photographs rather than collected specimens, so the regional identification is provisional - within this genus the reliable characters are on the tail plate and need a specimen in the hand, which makes a sharp photograph of the tail genuinely useful.
- very small, under 5 cm
- mottled green body with pale banding on the legs
- occupies pencil-width holes in rubble
- club-shaped smashing claws
