Pistol Shrimp Create Tiny Stars With Their Claws

Most shrimp mind their own business. The pistol shrimp, however, has decided to harness the power of the sun — with a single body part. These small crustaceans, typically about two inches long, possess one oversized snapping claw that closes so fast it fires a jet of water at nearly 60 miles per hour.

That jet creates a cavitation bubble — a tiny pocket of near-vacuum. When the bubble collapses, the resulting pressure spike generates a burst of heat reaching around 8,000 Kelvin. For reference, the surface of the sun sits at roughly 5,500 Kelvin. A shrimp weighing less than a grape briefly produces something hotter than a star. The phenomenon is called sonoluminescence.

The whole flash lasts only a fraction of a millisecond, completely invisible to the naked eye. But the shockwave is more than enough to stun or kill small fish and invertebrates. The shrimp doesn't even need to touch its prey — it just aims a tiny sonic detonation in the right direction and waits for dinner to arrive.

If you ever scuba dive near a coral reef and hear a constant crackling, like static or frying bacon, that's thousands of pistol shrimp going about their day. They are collectively one of the loudest sources of noise in the entire ocean — one miniature star at a time.