A rare shrimp which can "pack a bigger punch than Tyson" has been caught by a Galway fisherman and given to the city's aquarium in Salthill.
The Mantis shrimp, Meiosquilla desmaresti, prefers the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, but was discovered off the west coast last week by Galway fisherman Mr Frank Flanagan in one of his shrimp pots.
"It is only the second one of its kind ever recorded in Irish waters," said Mr Dave McGrath, a crustacean expert attached to the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. The shrimp is now on display in Galway's Atlantaquaria.
Mantis shrimps are renowned for the speed with which they can flick their claws. Some can "punch" at such a speed that they have been known to shatter the glass in aquarium tanks. "We hate to think what it might do to any other creature foolish enough to get in its way," said Mr Neil Campbell, Atlantaquaria's manager, yesterday ."It would be like putting a man off the street in the ring with Mike Tyson."
He said the shrimp's claws can reach speeds of over 100 m.p.h.
