The pistol shrimp snaps its claw so explosively fast that it creates bubbles reaching temperatures as hot as the sun's surface.

The pistol shrimp, particularly species like Alpheus heterochaelis, employs a remarkable anatomical mechanism for hunting. When the shrimp snaps its specialized plunger-like claw, water accelerates so rapidly that pressure drops below the vapor pressure of the liquid—a phenomenon called cavitation. This creates a tiny vapor bubble, essentially a vacuum pocket rather than an air-filled space.When surrounding water pressure crushes this bubble in less than a millisecond, it releases an intense burst of energy manifested as sonoluminescence—a brief, brilliant flash of light. In 2000, researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands used high-speed cameras to confirm that the snap reaches temperatures of approximately 5,000 Kelvin, or about 8,500°F. For perspective, the sun's surface is roughly 9,940°F, making the pistol shrimp's snap nearly as hot as our nearest star.The resulting acoustic shockwave reaches 210 decibels, louder than a jet engine or gunshot. This sound stuns or kills small fish and crustaceans instantly from just a few centimeters away. The force is so intense that pistol shrimp in laboratory aquariums have been known to crack glass tanks. This remarkable biological engineering makes the pistol shrimp one of the ocean's loudest and most efficient predators.