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Mantis Shrimps

Humans train for years at throwing punches to become good boxers. However, Mantis shrimps have a naturally powerful punch.

Mantis shrimps are found in the shallow waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. They are very colourful and their size ranges from two to seven inches. They are crustaceans, which means that they are animals with a hard outer shell.

Mantis shrimps can throw the fastest punches in the world. They use their powerful punch to hunt for preys. Their punches can break through crab shells and walls of fish tanks as well.

Their bodies have adapted to throw fast punches. When their upper arms contract, their body’s energy gets stored in a small saddle- shaped part in their body. This acts like a spring that has been compressed. All this energy is released at once, leading the lower arm ahead quickly. Each punch produces small flashes of light, upon impact. These small flashes occur because their claw moves so fast that it lowers the pressure of the water in front of it, causing it to boil.

A Peacock Mantis shrimp’s punches are as fast as a bullet.

Deep sea creature

Every birthday, we grow a year older. Our body also ages with time. This is true of most living beings, except a type of jellyfish that has the ability to reverse its life cycle!

Turritopsis dohrnii, a species of jellyfish lives in the Mediterranean Sea and in the waters around Japan. This small bell shaped jellyfish grows up to 4.5 mm in diameter as well as in height—that is about the size of a fire ant.

Generally, a jellyfish starts life as a polyp—a cucumber-shaped organism that attacks itself to the ocean floor or a coral reef. Depending on the species, a polyp takes between a week and a month to grow into an adult.

When an adult Turritopsis dohrnii is injured, it goes to the bottom of the ocean floor and transforms back into a polyp—its infant state. It does so by first retracting its tentacles and then gradually shrinking its body. Once it reaches its polyp state, it starts to grow back into an adult jellyfish. This makes the jellyfish immortal. It has the ability to do this over and over again, until it is either eaten by a predator or dies of some disease.

Turritopsis dohrnii has inspired scientists to use this process of “rebirth” to try and renew damaged or dead human tissues of a dysfunctional organ and restore it to its normal state.

Termite mounds

Termites are insects that live in colonies with a hierarchy similar to that of the bees: Queen, soldier, worker and larval termites. They live in either nests or mounds.

The mound-building termites build strong mounds that can be as tall as 25 feet and live in the lower part of the mound that is underground. Irrespective of the weather outside, the inside of the mound always remains cool at 30 degree Celsius because of a network of tunnels that make up its ventilation system. The tunnels extend across the length and breadth of the mound and are all connected to one big central tunnel that runs through the centre.

During the day, when the temperature rises, the air near the opening of the mound becomes warm. As hot air rises up through the tunnels, the cool air, being denser, sinks lower through the central tunnel. This keeps the temperature inside the mound cooler than outside. Termites control the temperature of their mound because they farm a type of fungus, which grows only in this temperature. This fungus is their main source of food.

Termite mounds can outlast the colonies that built them. Some mounds have lasted even up to 2000 years.