Young snapping shrimps' tiny claws can accelerate in water like a bullet, new research suggests.The adult animals, Alpheus heterochaelis, use the technique to stun passing fish and foes with a simple click of a spring-loaded claw.This squirts a high-speed jet that rips through the water and creates a vapour-filled bubble (a cavitation bubble), invisible to the naked eye, that then implodes.

Young snapping shrimps' tiny claws can accelerate in water like a bullet, new research suggests.The adult animals, Alpheus heterochaelis, use the technique to stun passing fish and foes with a simple click of a spring-loaded claw.This squirts a high-speed jet that rips through the water and creates a vapour-filled bubble (a cavitation bubble), invisible to the naked eye, that then implodes.