Fascinating. *Quality unsolved science mystery.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by lucky760.

To clarify, mantis shrimp don't create sonoluminescence in the same way that pistol shrimp do, by "squeezing their claws together". They create it when the smack things, like snails, really hard with their raptorial appendages.

Another interesting angle to think about: We have all of this scientific interest in sonoluminescence, and the host of cool hypotheses mentioned, not just because it's cool. ..but because, among other things, the Navy REALLY wants to understand the process of cavitation, and throws money at research on the subject. Why? because ship and submarine propellers also create cavitation, and they want to create war machines that are not loud and whose propellers last longer.