Mantis shrimp display remarkable sensory and cognitive abilities that challenge assumptions about crustacean experience and raise welfare questions about their collection and keeping.
Mantis shrimp occupy an unusual position in welfare discussions: their extraordinary sensory complexity — seeing colors invisible to all other known animals, detecting polarized light, using tools — places them far outside the behavioral repertoire of typical crustaceans whose welfare is already contested. If sensory and cognitive complexity is relevant to welfare capacity, mantis shrimp present a stronger case for welfare consideration than many invertebrates. Their collection for the marine aquarium trade involves the same welfare harms as other wild-caught marine invertebrates: capture stress, transport mortality, and captive environments that may not meet their behavioral and sensory needs. As welfare science progressively takes invertebrate cognition more seriously, mantis shrimp represent a species whose extraordinary capabilities merit welfare attention commensurate with their complexity.