U.K. Warned `Kick-Boxing' Shrimp Found at Coast, Telegraph Says
2004-05-12 01:55 (New York)
By Chris Peterson
May 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. officials warned bathers to take care after a rare species of shrimp able to deliver a punch at the speed of a small-caliber bullet was found off the south coast, the Daily Telegraph said, citing marine wildlife experts.
The three-inch long mantis shrimp, known as the ``kick-boxing'' shrimp, can lash out with one of its limbs and shatter the shell of a crab as well as give a painful lesson to anyone who tries to pick it up, the newspaper said.
Two were caught in a fishing net off the south English resort of Weymouth and marine biologists say there may be a colony there; the bright orange creature is typically found in the Mediterranean Sea or tropical areas around the Equator, the newspaper said.
``It has the swiftest, and perhaps the most brutal, strike of any predator,'' biologist Sheila Patek of the University of California told the Telegraph.