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Odontodactylus scyllarus

A large stomatopod of the western Indo-Pacific, one of the most colourful in the group. 2 It breaks its prey's shells with lightning-fast blows of its hammer-like appendages. 4 5

Odontodactylidae
Odontodactylus scyllarus

At a glance

Data from the scientific sources listed at the bottom.

Depth in the wild

1–30 m

0 m6 m12 m18 m24 m30 m

Size

up to 17 cm

048121620

maximum total length

Conservation

NEDDLCNTVUENCREWEX

IUCN Red List: not evaluated. Red List data taken from SeaLifeBase and GBIF. 2 12 It does not appear in the CITES lists checked on Species+. 11 SeaLifeBase reports its use in the aquarium trade. 2

Where it lives

Red SeaWestern Indian OceanEastern Indian OceanCentral Indo-PacificWestern PacificCentral PacificEastern PacificWestern AtlanticEastern AtlanticMediterranean

Western Indo-Pacific. 2 WoRMS lists the Seychelles, Mayotte, the eastern and western Australian shelves, Japan, north-eastern New Zealand and the central Indo-Pacific. 1 Specimens studied also come from the coast of Fujian, in China. 13

How to recognise it

Tap a number on the photo: the key explains what to look for.

123
  1. 1Eye large, on a stalk, it moves independently of the other 3
  2. 2Uropod the tail appendages are a deep blue 2
  3. 3Red bristles they edge the uropods and other appendages 2

Life in the wild

Where it is found

It lives in shallow, clear reef water, from just below low tide down to 30 m, including the first 1-2 m. 3 It uses existing burrows on shallow, uneven bottoms, often on or near reefs. 2 SeaLifeBase gives a range of 0-100 m and cites an observation at 36 m. 2

What it eats

It preys on fish and invertebrates, such as snails, crabs and molluscs, which it strikes or spears with its two raptorial appendages. 3 SeaLifeBase also mentions slipper lobsters and the use of the appendages to smash hard-shelled prey. 2 The hammer-like appendages are suited to repeated impacts on heavily mineralised prey. 6

Behaviour

SeaLifeBase describes it as active by day and as the largest of the 'smasher' stomatopods. 2 Each strike produces two force peaks about 390-480 microseconds apart: the impact of the appendage and then the collapse of the cavitation bubbles. 5 The strike is so fast that it needs a saddle-shaped spring in the exoskeleton, which stores and releases energy. 4

Reproduction

The available data are general for the order: some species form lifelong pairs, others meet only to mate; females can brood up to 50,000 eggs, and the planktonic larva lasts about 3 months. 2

In the aquarium

From the experience of the BallingMania community.

Community rating

No rating in the original sheet.

Original sheet

Odontodactylus scyllarus (known in Italian as canocchia pavone and in English as peacock mantis shrimp) is a brightly coloured crustacean that lives on coral reefs and sandy flats in the Indo-Pacific. Its common name comes from the brilliant green and blue markings on the male's shell; females are colourful too, but mainly red. The peacock mantis shrimp is a powerful predator and feeds on invertebrates and small fish of every kind. It is known for its lightning-fast predatory strike, and to break the shells of its victims it uses its raptorial limbs like clubs, delivering deadly hooks; it uses this attack to completely dismember crabs, shrimp, snails and other crustaceans.

Peacock mantis shrimp are often stowaways in our aquariums, brought in inside live rock; they are very fast, very shy and active at night, so we will rarely manage to see them. If shrimp, snails and small fish start disappearing from our aquarium, and at night we hear 'clicks' coming from the tank, the cause of the mysterious disappearances is very probably a peacock mantis shrimp! So we will have to arm ourselves with patience and a trap to catch it.

good or bad? VERDICT:

Key: Good! An organism beneficial to the system. Reef Safe!

An organism whose benign or harmful nature is not yet known, to be kept an eye on.

Bad! The organism is a threat to the other inhabitants of the aquarium or could become a pest.

A food source for the other inhabitants of the aquarium.

A potentially toxic or venomous organism.

© Elias Levy

Did you know?

In tests the impact reached 400 to 1,501 newtons and cavitation up to 504 newtons: forces thousands of times greater than the animal's weight. 5
The hammer withstands this thanks to a multi-layered structure, with oriented mineral crystals and chitin fibres arranged in a helix. 6
The periodic part of the hammer of 'smasher' stomatopods filters out the high-frequency stress waves produced by the cavitation bubbles. 10
In the eye, two rows of the central band detect polarised ultraviolet light. 3
In stomatopods with 12 types of photoreceptors, colours seem to be recognised by scanning the scene with the eye, rather than by comparing signals as we do. 7 Some stomatopods can also distinguish circularly polarised light. 8
The body shows a faint green and red fluorescence, also in the filamentous structures of the legs and uropods. 9

Sources

  1. WoRMS Editorial Board (2026). Odontodactylus scyllarus (Linnaeus, 1758). World Register of Marine Species.
  2. SeaLifeBase (2026). Odontodactylus scyllarus. SeaLifeBase.
  3. Kleinlogel S., Marshall N.J. (2009). Ultraviolet polarisation sensitivity in the stomatopod crustacean Odontodactylus scyllarus. Journal of Comparative Physiology A.
  4. Patek S.N., Korff W.L., Caldwell R.L. (2004). Biomechanics: deadly strike mechanism of a mantis shrimp. Nature.
  5. Patek S.N., Caldwell R.L. (2005). Extreme impact and cavitation forces of a biological hammer: strike forces of the peacock mantis shrimp Odontodactylus scyllarus. Journal of Experimental Biology.
  6. Weaver J.C. et al. (2012). The stomatopod dactyl club: a formidable damage-tolerant biological hammer. Science.
  7. Thoen H.H., How M.J., Chiou T.H., Marshall J. (2014). A different form of color vision in mantis shrimp. Science.
  8. Chiou T.H. et al. (2008). Circular polarization vision in a stomatopod crustacean. Current Biology.
  9. Poding L.H., Jägers P., Senen B., Limmon G.V., Herlitze S., Huhn M. (2024). New observations of fluorescent organisms in the Banda Sea and in the Red Sea. PLOS ONE.
  10. Alderete N.A. et al. (2025). Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield?. Science.
  11. UNEP-WCMC (2026). Search for Odontodactylus scyllarus in the CITES lists. Species+.
  12. GBIF Secretariat (2026). Odontodactylus scyllarus, IUCN Red List category. GBIF.
  13. Duan X. et al. (2025). Whole-genome survey information revealed the genome characteristics, mitochondrial genome diversity and evolutionary patterns of Stomatopoda species. BMC Genomics.

Sources checked on 5 November 2026. Community texts and ratings are kept separate from the scientific data.

Download the original sheet (Italian)All species