A small smashing mantis of open sand, with eyes that move independently and constantly.
A stomatopod to about 10 cm, pale green to cream, patterned with purple-blue spots along the body and with the carapace edged in the same colour. The eyes are large, mounted on mobile stalks and banded, and they track independently — the animal will watch a diver with one and the bottom with the other. It is a smashing species, like the peacock mantis shrimp, and carries the same calcified club folded under the head.
Smaller and far less often seen than the peacock, and an animal of open sand and fine rubble rather than reef. It occupies a simple burrow with a rim of ejected sediment and spends much of its time at the entrance with the eyes clear. Recorded from about 5 to 30 m. Stomatopod eyes are the most complex known — twelve or more photoreceptor classes against a human three — and the current understanding is that this buys speed of colour recognition rather than fine discrimination, which is the opposite of the usual popular claim.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
