LOBSTER BASICS
Lobsters are invertebrates, members of the Class Crustacea of the Phylum Arthropoda. Lobsters, along with other organisms without backbones (such as crab, shrimp, crayfish, water fleas, copepods, barnacles, and wood lice), are commonly called crustaceans (from a Latin word meaning hard shell).
The lobster's body has 19 parts, each covered by a section of its hard shell. The shell is thin and soft where the parts join, so the lobster can bend its body and move about.
Lobsters breathe through gills located beneath the shell on both sides of its thorax (center part).
Lobsters have two pairs of antennae on their head. Their eyes are compound eyes, consisting of hundreds of lenses joined together on the ends of a pair of slender, jointed organs called "stalks." They keep their antennae and eye stalks moving constantly to search for food and to watch for enemies.
It is unlikely that the lobster's nervous system is sophisticated enough to sense pain as we know it. Like all arthropods, the nervous system of a lobster is very primitive, containing far fewer nerve cells than human nervous systems. The nerve cells are grouped in clusters called ganglia. A lobster has no cerebral cortex, the area of the human brain that gives the perception of pain.
Lobsters are cannibalistic. Very territorial, when they encounter one another, they become aggressive and fight, using their claws as weapons, until one backs away.
Lobster blood usually has very little color, although when exposed to air it turns pinkish or red. When cooked, however, it becomes white and "sweats" out of the meat. It is the white substance that you find along the inside of the shell when you crack it open.
A male lobster is called a ---- and a female a hen or chicken (when it weighs about one pound). A one-clawed lobster is called a cull. If it has no claws, it's called a pistol.
If a lobster loses a claw or an eye, it is usually able to grow another, although the new one is usually smaller. One of the most extraordinary abilities that lobsters possess is called reflex amputation. The lobster will throw or release an appendage when stimulated by shock, fear or injury. It will later regenerate this part.
All lobsters do not have the heavy ("crusher") claw on the same side. Those having it on the right are considered "right-handed," and the others are "left-handed."
The 2004 Maine lobster harvest landed 63.2 million pounds, a 20 percent increase over the previous record set in 2002, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The value of the 2004 catch was a record $253.5 million.
The largest lobster ever caught in Maine measured 36 in. from nose to tail. The largest ever caught weighed 42 pounds, seven ounces.
COLOR
In their native North Atlantic Ocean, the color of live lobsters varies somewhat, but in general they are a dark blue-green, with spots. There are also rare, yellow, red, and white ones. Except for the white ones, they all turn red when cooked. Why? Because the lobster's shell consists of many different color pigment chromatophores. When it is cooked, all the pigments are masked except for astaxanthin, which is the background red pigment.
A genetic defect occasionally produces the very rare "blue" lobster. The defect causes the production of an excessive amount of protein. The protein wraps around a small, red carotenoid molecule known as astaxanthin. The two push together, forming a blue complex known as crustacyanin which gives the lobster shell a blue color. About one in a million lobsters are blue. When cooked, it ends up looking like anyother lobster -- a baked orange color.
MOLTING OR SHEDDING
Lobsters grow by molting or shedding their shell. It takes a lobster four to seven years to grow to be one pound in weight and to become an adult. They molt, or shed their shells, about 25 times in those first years of life. An adult male lobster sheds its old shell and grows a new one twice a year and a female once, increasing about 1/2 in. and 1/3 pound each time. When molting, the lobster's body gives off a substance that softens the shell. Then, by expanding its muscles, the lobster splits the shell and steps out of it. This process takes approximately 15 minutes. The new shell, which had formed under the old one, is soft and gives the lobster no protection. It takes about eight weeks for the new shell to harden. After the old hard shell is discarded the lobster is sometimes called a “new-shell lobster” or a "shedder." In Maine, new-shell lobsters are usually harvested from July through October. No one has yet found a way to determine the exact age of a lobster because it sheds its shell so often.
