Say the word lobster and you will likely get a variety of reactions ranging from kids who smile from thinking about some of their favorite cartoon characters to adults whose mouths water thinking about a culinary treat. Still others might cringe, thinking of lobsters as
Say the word lobster and you will likely get a variety of reactions ranging from kids who smile from thinking about some of their favorite cartoon characters to adults whose mouths water thinking about a culinary treat. Still others might cringe, thinking of lobsters as strange sea creatures. In many reef communities around the world lobsters are among the more conspicuous invertebrates and, as a result, many experienced divers naturally think back to a favorite diving memory when they saw, photographed, caught or tried to catch a lobster. Commercial fishermen often call some species of lobsters “red money,” a reference to the body color of several commercial species and the fact that a good haul can yield a pot full of cash.
We’ll take a look into the natural history and some of the nuances of the secret lives of a group of creatures whose common names include terms such as spiny, hairy, slipper, elegant, regal, rock, emerald, banded, red-banded, Maine and American.
Described in the phylum Arthropoda, lobsters are members of a class of aquatic arthropods known as crustaceans, a grouping that includes about 35,000 species. In addition to lobsters, the class crustacea includes crabs, shrimps and barnacles as well as a group of other animals, namely stomatopods, amphipods, copepods and isopods, whose generally unfamiliar names end with the syllable “pod.” The word crustacean is derived from the Greek word for “hard shell,” a characteristic of the members of this class. The hard shell offers protection and gives muscles places for attachment, but makes growth a challenge. In fact, crustaceans have to shed their shells, or molt, to increase their size. There are four major families of lobsters described in the order Decopoda, a name from the Greek meaning “ten-legged.” Decapods possess five pairs of legs.
As you might be aware, some of the creatures we commonly refer to as lobsters are armed with claws while other species are not. It is at the family level in the hierarchy of scientific, or taxonomic, classification that taxonomists begin to distinguish between the lobsters that possess claws and those that don’t. The species known as the American lobster (aka Maine lobster) possesses claws and is classified in the family Nephropidae. Those lobsters known as spiny lobsters that are quite common throughout the Caribbean, Florida and the Bahamas as well as different species of spiny lobsters found in California, Europe, Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and throughout the Indo-Pacific do not have claws. These species are described in the family Palinuridae.
The clawless species known as slipper lobsters (family Scyllaridae) differ significantly from spiny lobsters.
Those creatures commonly called squat lobsters also possess claws but they are much smaller and differ significantly from the animals specialists describe as lobsters.
American Lobster and Spiny Lobsters
To sport divers and laymen the often publicized American lobster (Homarus americanus) is probably best known for its delicious fl