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Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com.

 

Killer shrimp at large in California aquarium

2:08:02 pm mst / 6 January 2001 found by paul / filed in science / source Fox News 82 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails

A single 4-inch long predatory mantis shrimp is wreaking havoc at a children's aquarium in Monterey, California. The shrimp has eluded the aquarium personnel for months, devouring "prized sea snails, barnacles, and hermit crabs" and leaving behind "piles of broken shells". The article says that the shrimp has "reduced a coral reef exhibit to a killing field".

Maybe they need to post a reward -- "Wanted Dead or Alive"...

Comments

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Octopi by MysteriousStranger 10:59:05 pm mst / 6 January 2001 / # 1

Now I don't have any idea whether this is true or not; it could be urban legend. A friend of mine told me a story about an aquarium, but I don't know where he got it. But it's amusing, and it went like this: An aquarium noticed that fish were vanishing out of a certain tank and couldn't figure out what was happening, since nothing predatory was in there. So finally, they set up a TV camera in the hallway connected to a VCR, and the next time fish vanished, they reviewed the tape. What they saw was an octopus from a different tank would push back the lid on its own tank, crawl along the floor and up to the one where the fish were, open it up, go inside for a while (and presumably capture and eat a fish), come back out and close the lid behind it, crawl back to its own tank, and then close the lid on its own tank. Now it's known that the advanced molluscs are quite intelligent; I've seen film of an octopus figuring out how to pull a stopper out of a jar in order to reach a spiny lobster inside (yum!). So this isn't completely implausible. Still...