A slender spearing mantis shrimp to about 10 cm (4 in), and the color chameleon of the group: individuals run from grass green through mottled brown to a clear bright yellow, matching whatever they settle in, and a single animal can shift shade across successive molts. Two dark spots on the tail plate are the constant, showing when the tail is spread.
It hunts over sand, seagrass and algal turf from the shallows to about 20 m (65 ft), sheltering in a shallow scrape or under rubble and coming out mostly at night to spear small fish and shrimp. Its eyes are worth a torch: mounted on stalks that swivel independently, they carry a band of specialised receptors that reads polarised light, and each eye judges distance on its own - a mantis shrimp with one eye covered still strikes accurately. The species is circumtropical, one of very few stomatopods that turn up in warm shallow water almost everywhere, and it is small enough to be harmless to a diver who is not trying to pick it up.
- color ranges from green through brown to bright yellow
- pair of dark eye-like spots on the tail plate
- slender spearing claws
- length up to 10 cm
