Supershrimp superpowers?

[phlox]

Hi all,

Everyone's been so tremendously helpful with helping set up my opae! Thanks! I'm super excited-- but now I'm starting to get more curious about them in general. I've been reading through some articles from U of Hawaii on them, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot.

Y'all know all this already, but it's news to me! I've learned that obvs Opae live 10-20 years, which is pretty cool, and that they're usually red but can go "invisible" for a few minutes to a few hours when startled-- which is something I've noticed with my own (they're getting used to my keyboard.) They've got compound eyes, but what are the nature of those eyes? How many colors can they see? Are they compound like a fly, or compound like a stomatopod?

I also have noticed that they like to sit on the bottom and gossip with each other. They'll face each other so their antennae touch, and waggle them. One will react and churn its little claws a bit, waggling quicker, and then they'll go back to waggling intently. The other will react! and so on. They also like to dogpile all together in a corner after a bit of a swim. What is their social structure like? Do they really communicate with their antennae, or are they doing something else? I know some kinds of arthropods can be marvelously intelligent, and I'm really curious.

[MelWong]

This is off-topic for this forum, but whenever you mention stomatopods I remember the time my dentist uncle worked in an office with a HUGE coral-loaded reef tank, full of beautiful fish, and his anecdote about the fish vanishing after they had a hitchhiker on some of the live rock in the tank.

(ONETWOTHREEDEATH! http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp)

- Mel

[phlox]

hahaha! i will admit that stomatopods are pretty much my favorite animals and I may have cheered when The Oatmeal did their cartoon XD I'm kind of hoping to learn that opae have similar epicnesses (even if they don't create cavitation bubbles.) The invisibility is pretty cool, as is their toughness. (relevance to topic established! )

[MelWong]

I think their most important superpower is the ability to steal your heart.

... at least, they've completely stolen mine.

[phlox]

ha! yes indeed. between the adoration and the OMG HAVE U SEEN MY SHRIMP YET THEY ARE TINY AND CUTE i've basically turned into something out of hyperbole and a half XD