More Beasts

E, F, and G in the Book of Barely Imagined Beings were all disconcertingly alien, covering eels, flatworms and a smasher shrimp.  It was actually difficult to read on a sunny weekend afternoon, especially since it followed the very charming dolphin chapter.

This, for example, is the shrimp Gonodactylus smithii:

It's got an appendage it uses to club things with, which shoots out at near-bullet like speeds, enough to break a human bone.  Happily, despite the dirty genus name the 'appendage' is not its penis, but just a specialized limb.  Apparently there are 'smasher' and 'spearer' shrimps, and the smashers want to be able to club through shells to get to their meat.

Most of the description in the book focuses not on its threatening bullet-finger, though, but its vision.  It can distinguish polarized (in common with other marine species) and circularly polarized light (a unique ability), letting it see transparent animals and invisible-to-us features quite easily.