Species Fact Profile: American Lobster (Homarus americanus)

                                                      American Lobster                                                                 Homarus americanus (H. Milne-Edwards, 1837)

Range: Atlantic Coast of North America, from Labrador, Canada to North Carolina, US

Habitat:  Cold, Shallow Seafloor, usually less than 50 meters deep, but sometimes over 450 meters below the surface

Diet: Mollusks, Echinoderms, Crustaceans, Fish

Social Grouping: Solitary

Reproduction: Females mature at about 5 years of age.  After molting, females release pheromones with attract males, who begin to dance around her with claws closed.  The male inserts a packet of sperm into the female using his claws; the female may store this packet for up to 15 months before fertilizing her egg.  Size of clutch depends on size of female, larger female can lay over 75,000.  Eggs are attached to the bottom of the female's tail, carried for 10-11 months until they hatch.  hatching usually takes place in May or June.  Only about 1 in 1,000 survive to adulthood

Lifespan: 100 Years +

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

•       One of the largest (and the heaviest) crustaceans in the world, reaching up to 64 centimeters in length and weighing up to 20 kilograms (more commonly less than 4 kilograms).  Body divided into 21 segments - 6 in the head, 8 for the mid-section, and 7 for the tail.  Eyes are on stalks
•       Five pairs of legs, the foremost pair ending in large claws.  The pair consists of a larger crusher with rounded nodules and a smaller, sharper, cutter.   Lobsters display "handedness," with some having the crusher on the right and the cutter on the left, and others having the opposite
•       Usually bluish-green or brownish, with red spines, but a variety of color morphs have been observed, including electric blue and bright orange, albino, or even "split," with the right side being one color and the left side another
•       Larvae are free-swimming, but after a few molts they sink to the ocean floor and typically stay there.  If confronted by a predator, they may defend themselves with their claws or retreat into burrows.  Primarily nocturnal
•       As lobsters age, the frequency of molting decreases from several times (up to ten times) per year to only once every few years
•       Predators include a wide variety of fishes, as well as seals
•       Very popular as a food item (albeit often a luxury one), with live specimens often seen kept in tanks in stores.  Traditionally cooked by being boiled alive (lobsters are often thought of as red, but only assume this color after boiling), though this practice is now outlawed in many countries.  The fishery has historically been very important in New England, especially Maine, and is regulated for sustainability.  Sometimes raised commercially in order to boost the size and financial value of specimens
•       Species has been introduced to Norway and Iceland; specimens have also been caught off the coast of California