pick up

[Hattie B]

In my quest to learn more about mantis shrimp.

I have yet to come across how you pick one up?

Also on Roy's page what is the Raptorial Appendage used for? If I am correctly identifying in it some photos it liooks rather promient, but I don't know what it does.


Amber


ps. if Roy is out there and reads this.

I seriously gave thought to becoming an Entomologist, however I was more interested in Arachnids, which I had quite the collection a couple years ago.

Now I work in bio-tech, small molecule/prodrugs, human oncology, but I still work in vivo.. rodents of course..

 

[Crawling68]

You dont want to pick one up, thats why you havent ran across it.

 

[Gonodactylus]

The raptorial appendage is more properly called the second maxilliped or thoracopod. They are the highly modified and enlarged mouth appendages that are occasionally called the "smashers" or "clubs". I prefer to call them raptorial appendages.

Picking up animals depends on the species and size. It is difficult to describe the technique I use for your standard 3 inch gonodactylid, but I'll give it a try. I usually dump the animal out on a couple of thicknesses of clean paper towel. They will flop around for a few seconds, but usually stop fairly quickly. You want the animal to come to rest on its ventral surface. DO NOT TRY TO TOUCH A STOMATOPOD LYING ON ITS BACK! It can see your hand approaching and will strike. Using my left hand, I quickly grasp the animal behind the head using my thumb and forefinger. Actually, I firmly grasp it at the point of the raptorial appendages. Be careful not to get your fingers so far down that they can be hit by the dactyl. You want to hold it pretty much from the size. I then use my little finger to gently but firmly depress the abdomen to the size. This keeps it from flipping up its telson and stabbing you with its sharp uropod spines. (The worst injury I ever got from a stomatopod was from the uropod, not the raptorial appendage. With the animal now pinned, I can raise it up and if it does strike, the dactyls can't hit anything. More typically, I want to roll the animal over to look at its genitalia. To do that, I reach in with my right hand and using my thumb, depress the dactyls. They cannot strike if the dactyls are firmly held in the closed position.

I have probably handled over a 100,000 stomatopods and I would guess that 1 in a hundred get in a strike that draws blood or at least stings. However, I still have all my fingers. The more tense times are when one wiggles free and flops off the table into my lap.

Roy

 

[Thurge]

Yea I guess that at times like that there are no athiests.

As for what they are used for, the Smashers use them to break open shells, and stun fish, while the Spearers use them to grasp fish.

 

[Uriel]

"The more tense times are when one wiggles free and flops off the table into my lap..."


"...Yea I guess that at times like that there are no athiests."



AMEN!!!