More information than you ever needed to know about our backboneless, hard-shelled crustacean friends…
• There are two kinds of lobsters, the “true” lobster (also called American lobster) and the spiny lobster. The true lobster uniquely has claws on the first four legs, while the spiny lobster has a pair of horns above the eyes. Spiny lobsters also have two large cream-colored spots on the top of the second segment of the tail.
• Lobsters can be left or right “handed.” Some lobsters will have their crusher claw on the right while others will crush with the left. Some lobsters are even ambidextrous, generally favoring the larger of the two claws but occasionally using both.
• Lobster blood is a clear fluid. When the lobster is boiled, the blood turns to an opaque whitish gel. It has no discernible flavor and is perfectly safe to eat.
• Lobsters can regenerate legs, claws, and antennae. Lobsters often amputate their own legs or claws in self-defense or from stress because they are able to grow them back.
• Lobsters aren’t bright red until they are cooked! Live lobsters come in a variety of colors, sometimes even more than one. Usually lobsters feature a blue-green color, but lobsters have been found in yellow, white, orange, blue and brown shells. And only the white ones don’t turn red once cooked.
• A male lobster is called a cock and a female a hen or chicken (when she weighs about 1 pound).
• Because lobsters molt (shed their shell to grow) so often it is nearly impossible to know their exact age, although scientists believe lobsters can live up to 100 years. The average life expectancy of a lobster is 15 years.
• Lobsters can grow to be 3 feet long in overall body length!
• Lobsters use complicated signals to establish social relationships, much like dolphins. They sometimes walk “hand-in-hand”, the old leading the young.
• Lobsters chew their food in their stomach, which is very close to their mouth, between three grinding surfaces that look like molar teeth called the “gastric mill”.
• To escape from enemies, lobsters swim backwards by flipping their tail.
These are just a few of the uncommon and interesting lobster facts from Fine Lobster.
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