"Beautiful" and "deadly" are two descriptors you don’t typically see attached to shrimp. But the mantis shrimp is in a class of its own. This colorful specimen has earned a reputation for being one of the most fearsome creatures of the deep. Here are 10 facts worth knowing about the pint-sized bruisers.

1. THEY’RE NOT SHRIMP.

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Despite their namesake and relatively puny stature, mantis shrimp aren’t shrimp at all. (Neither, of course, are they mantises.) They're stomatopods, distant relatives to crabs, shrimp, and lobsters.

2. THEY PACK A POWERFUL PUNCH.

The peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) uses two appendages called dactyl clubs to pummel its prey like aquatic Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots—that is, if kids’ toys could punch fast enough to boil water and split fingers to the bone. These wrecking ball "fists" spring forth from their bodies at 50 mph, accelerating quicker than a .22-caliber bullet. At those speeds, the water surrounding them briefly reaches the temperature of the Sun’s surface. When the dactyl clubs hit their target, they deliver 160 pounds of force, smashing through shells like a lightning-fast crab mallet.

3. THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF SPECIES.

Mantis shrimp come in a variety of species, and we’re aware of about 550 of them. Stomatopods from different species range in size from smaller than an inch to longer than a foot. They’re usually classified by murder method—either smashing, as detailed above, or spearing. In place of dactyl clubs, spearers have two sharp appendages on the front of their bodies built for harpooning prey. Spear-wielding mantis shrimp don’t move as fast as their club-fisted counterparts (their strikes are about 10 times slower), but the threat of death by impalement is intimidating on its own.

4. THEIR VISION IS UNPARALLELED.

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Peacock mantis shrimp have the most complex set of peepers in the animal kingdom. Each eye contains 12 photoreceptors that allow them to sense different types of color. For comparison, human eyes typically contain three types of light-sensitive cells for seeing red, blue, and green. This has led some to conclude that mantis shrimp perceive the world in a psychedelic rainbow of vibrant color we can’t begin to comprehend. But in reality, the crustaceans are actually worse at differentiating between subtle variations in hue than we are.

A study from the University of Queensland found that when mantis shrimp were shown colors with a difference in wavelength less than 25 nanometers, they had trouble telling them apart. But just because mantis shrimp may not see the variations between powder blue and periwinkle doesn’t mean their vision isn’t extraordinary. On the contrary, their optic abilities are on a completely separate level from ours, functioning more like a satellite than anything found in nature. Scientists believe that mantis shrimp take all the visual information they see into their brains at once without processing it, allowing them to react to their surroundings as quickly as possible. Their independently roaming eyes and trinocular vision also make them excellent hunters.

5. THEY SHARE A SECRET LANGUAGE.