mantis shrimp, marine crustacean of the order Stomatopoda, characterized by a pair of enlarged appendages, called maxillipeds, that form powerful claws for seizing prey. The last two segments of each of these legs are strong and sharp, and the end segment is folded back over the next segment to make a scissorslike cut. Mantis shrimps have stalked eyes and flattened abdomens with appendages bearing gills. They are usually found in warm shallow tropical or subtropical seas. A number of species are quite large, reaching 1 ft (30 cm) or more in size. Mantis shrimps are an important seafood outside the Western Hemisphere. They are classified separately from either true shrimps or praying mantises (see mantid), whose forelimbs the maxillipeds superficially resemble. Mantis shrimps are grouped in the phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Crustacea, class Malacostraca, order Stomatopoda.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Zoology: Invertebrates
