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Arthropods, 2026, 15(1): 36-41
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Article

A brief analysis of progress in mantis shrimp bioacoustics

John A. Fornshell
Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA

Received 20 July 2025;Accepted 20 August 2025;Published online 10 September 2025;Published 1 March 2026
IAEES

Abstract
The historical study of bioacoustics of mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) is used as an example for the progress made in the study of bioacoustics in general. In the preceding 139 years biologists have published 80 manuscripts documenting the acoustics of the Stomatopoda. The number of scientific publications is taken as a quantitative measure of the increase of our knowledge of stomatopod bioacoustics. The first eighty years were characterized by anecdotal studies and records with a scientist to publication ratio of 1:1. The fifty year period from 1960 to 2010, which resulted in an exponential increase in our knowledge of bio-acoustics, were characterized by the increasing use of electronic recording instruments, hydrophones, underwater imaging devices, computers for spectral analysis and laboratory experiments, with a scientist to publication ratio of approximately 2:1. The following fourteen years saw decrease in the publications, i.e., acquisition of new knowledge, and a near doubling in the ratio of scientists to publications ratio to 3.25:1 scientists to publication.

Keywords bio-acoustics;sensilla;Stomatopoda;hydrophones;stomatopod rumble;stridulations.


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