mantis shrimp Taxidermy full body mount - Squilla mantis - 8 cm - 32 cm - 13 cm - 1

Squilla mantis, commonly known as the sea cicada, is a crustacean in the family Squillidae that mainly lives on the sandy and muddy seabed of the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Its scientific name recalls the terrestrial praying mantis due to its raptorial thoracic appendages, used to ambush prey with lightning-fast strikes. It can reach a maximum length of 20–25 cm. It features an elongated carapace of white-gray color with pinkish or pearlescent reflections. It has two distinctive brown-purple oval eye-like spots on the tail that help mislead predators about its orientation. Its eyes have binocular vision with 12 different photoreceptors, making its visual system one of the most complex in the animal kingdom. It is a solitary, nocturnal animal. It spends the daylight hours in galleries it digs in the bottom mud (at depths from 10 to 200 meters) and comes out at night to feed or reproduce. Squilla mantis hunts and attacks its prey using raptorial appendages positioned under the thorax, functioning similarly to the forelegs of a praying mantis. Squilla mantis, for its attacking strategy, belongs to the spearer category. The attack of the mantis shrimp (or mantis prawn) is one of the fastest and most powerful in the animal kingdom, comparable to the velocity of a .22-caliber bullet. The forelimbs move at about 80 km/h, accelerating in a fraction of a second (50 times faster than a blink of an eye). The force of the punch is so great that it vaporizes the surrounding water, creating a cavitation bubble. When this bubble collapses, it generates a second shockwave that hits the prey. The implosion of the bubble produces a flash of light (sonoluminescence) and a localized peak of extreme heat. This spring-like mechanism easily breaks the shells of mollusks, crabs and clams, or stuns predators. Beautiful lot: Squilla Mantis XXL. The pedestal is not included, made from recycled material and used for photographic purposes only. A necessary clarification. The final image in our photo gallery is produced with the help of AI software. The purpose is purely aesthetic but also demonstrative: it shows the real object inside an artificially generated setting. The aim is to show how precious the objects in the auction are and how well they fit in different, highly refined environments. Thank you for your attention.