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View Full Version : Mantis bother a Abalone?

JEMichael IV
05/31/2002, 12:25 PM
Do you think that a Mantis Shrimp will bother a Abalone?
Guy
05/31/2002, 01:33 PM
Only if it moves. (YES!)
JEMichael IV
05/31/2002, 03:24 PM
It is alot slower than any snail I have ever seen
Osprey
05/31/2002, 03:56 PM
I would expect an abalone would be fair game. I have lost a handful of chiton over the last few years to some of my smallest mantis shrimp.
Gonodactylus
05/31/2002, 07:19 PM
It depends on the size of the ab and of the stomatopod, but the answer is a definite yes. If you are talking about a 2 inch tropical ab such as the ones sold for "clean-up", O. scyllarus love them. At about $20 each, they are expensive food. I know because one of my O s. broke through a plastic egg crated partition and ate three. Even a 3 inch G. chiragra has no problem dealing with an ab this size.

Even big abalone are not immune. We occasionally find abalone shell outside Hemisquilla burrows. A 9 inch Hemisquilla can easily handle a 4 inch ab.

Roy