Lobsters

Cultural references

Lobsters have been around for about 500 million years and appear in the art or folklore of many cultures. The Romans portrayed lobsters on mosaic floors with depictions of battles to-the-death with wily octopuses. Turkish warriors wore helmets whose design was based on the armour plating of the loster. Known as the Zischägge, or "lobster tail", it had overlapping steel plates covering the wearers neck, providing both protection and ventilation. Some cultures considered the lobster an aphrodisaic, enhancing the power and charms of men, while for women it enhanced conception.

Fascinating Facts

· Lobsters are part of the animal group known as arthropods. Insects, spiders (arachnids), centipedes/ millipedes, shrimp, lobster, and crabs (crustaceans) are all arthropods.

· Lobsters come in a variety of colors besides the usual blue-green (their shells only turn red when they are boiled), including blue, yellow, red, and white. Some even come in two colors, having half of their shell one color and the other half a totally different color.

· Lobsters molt (shed their shells) to grow about 4-5 times per year. They will increase their size by about 20% at every molt. After a molt the animal is vulnerable because the new shell is very soft. A lobster will then eat voraciously, often devouring their own recently vacated shells to replenish lost calcium and hasten the hardening of their new shell. A lobster does not have teeth, instead they swallow their meal whole and leave the chewing to their stomach.

· A female lobster can mate only just after she sheds her shell. Lobster society has evolved a complex, touching courtship ritual that protects the female when she is most vulnerable. When she is ready to molt, the female lobster approaches a male's den and wafts a sex "perfume" called a pheromone in his direction. Unlike a female moth, whose sex pheromone may attract dozens of random suitors, the female lobster does the choosing. She usually seeks out the largest male in the neighborhood and stands outside his den, releasing her scent. He emerges from his den with his claws raised aggressively. She responds with a brief boxing match or by turning away. Either attitude seems to work to curb the male's aggression. The female raises her claws and places them on his head to let him know she is ready to mate. They enter the den, and some time after, from a few hours to several days later, the female molts. At this point the male could mate with her or eat her, but he invariably does the noble thing. He gently turns her limp body over onto her back with his walking legs and his mouth parts, being careful not to tear her soft flesh. They mate "with a poignant gentleness that is almost human, " observes Dr. Atema. She stays in the safety of his den for about a week until her new shell hardens. By then the attraction has passed, and the couple part with hardly a backward glance.

· Based on the descriptions of lobsters seen by fishermen during Colonial times, lobsters of that period sometimes lived to be approximately 150 years old. Not surprisingly, when the lobster industry began during the 1800's, the life expectancy of lobsters decreased. As a result, the oldest lobster on record lived to the age of 100 years, and weighed about 43 pounds.

· Another rare talent of lobsters is that they can regenerate legs, claws, and antennae. In fact they can amputate their own claws and legs to escape danger. A one-clawed lobster is a called a Cull.

· Lobsters, like people, also exhibit 'handedness'. Some animals will have the crusher claw on the right side while others will have it on the left.

· Lobsters carry their young for nine months.

· Like dolphins and many other animals, lobsters use complicated signals to explore their surroundings and establish social relationships.

· Lobsters also take long-distance seasonal journeys and can cover 100 miles or more each year (the equivalent of a human walking from Mntreal to Ottawa) — assuming that they manage to avoid the millions of traps set along the coasts. Sadly, many lobsters don’t survive their most formidable predator—humans.

Do lobsters feel pain?

This question has been asked by many a person who tosses a live lobster into a boiling pot or slices a live lobster down the middle prior to cooking. The lobster's nervous system has been extremely well-studied because it serves as a supposed "simple" model of neural circuitry in a lifeform less complicated than the highly cephalized vertebrates. Lobsters do not possess any kind of receptor akin to our pain receptors. However, they do possess stress receptors.

"As an invertebrate zoologist who has studied crustaceans for a number of years, I can tell you the lobster has a rather sophisticated nervous system that, among other things, allows it to sense actions that will cause it harm. … [Lobsters] can, I am sure, sense pain."
—Jaren G. Horsley, Ph.D.

Contrary to claims made by seafood sellers, there is little doubt anymore that lobsters, like all animals, can feel pain. Most scientists agree that a lobster’s nervous system is quite sophisticated. For example, neurobiologist Tom Abrams says lobsters have "a full array of senses." Jelle Atema, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and one of United State’s leading experts on lobsters, says, "I personally believe they do feel pain."

Lobsters may even feel more pain than we would in similar situations. According to invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, "The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. ... I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open ... [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed" during cooking.

Anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive can attest to the fact that when dropped into scalding water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. In the journal Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of killing lobsters as "unnecessary torture."