Shields Up!

Gonodactylus

Premium Member
I was photographing contests for cavities between Haptosquilla trispinosa and caught this guy in a defensive coil just after striking the resident. The use of the armored telson as a shield is typical of gonodactyloids.

Roy

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This behavior occurs in less than a second. I shot half a dozen rolls of film to catch the action. Haptosquilla is extremely aggressive, so I had lots of attacks to attempt to capture the attack.

Roy
 
Very cool. Do mantis always go into a defensive coil after a strike or only when they're battling for territory with members of their own species?

Thanks for sharing Dr. Roy!
 
Most gonodactyloids (gonodactylids, haptosquillids, chorisquillids, etc. that are smashers and have armored telsons use a defensive coil. A few very large species such as Odontodactylus scyllarus make less use of it, probably because the strike is so powerful the armor can't withstand the blow. However, even this species when small coils.

Also, for many stomatopods, the coil is not totally defensive. The uropods are usually armed with sharp spines that can also do some damage.

One neat aspect of the coil is that by eliciting strikes from an opponent, an attacker is assessing the power of the other animal and is also causing it to "waste a few shots". Attackers will probe an opponent with the telson until it strikes. If the strike is weak, they immediately attack. However, they will also attack if the other animal fires off three or four shots since it now has "fewer bullets". Stomatopods can only strike a few times in quick succession. It then takes 30 seconds or more to recover and be able to strike strongly again.

Roy
 
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