html> Sarabellum: Wet and Salty

Northern Lobster
(Homarus americanus)
See? I'm actually not red.

First of all...do you realize how hard it is to find a picture of an uncooked lobster on the internet? Harder than you might think. OK, now onto the science. The Northern lobster (aka American Lobster) is almost definitely the only lobster species you'll encounter on the Atlantic. If you can't identify one at first sight, you...um...wow. You must not be exposed to much. A large tank-like crustacean with two huge claws can be safely identified as a lobster. There's no way you could confuse a lobster with a crayfish either, since crayfish avoid even brackish water, staying in fresh water. Crayfish are smaller anyways. They range from Labrador to Virginia, and from the shallow coast to the edge of the continental shelf. Their first 3 pairs of walking legs have pincers/claws, and the front pair are called chelipeds. Of the two easily identifiable big claws, one is a "crusher" and the other is a "cutter". The former is for cracking open mollusks, while the cutter is used to tear apart whatever the lobster is feeding on. They're scavengers, so they will eat anything as long as it's not absolutely putrid. Although they tend to walk around a lot, to make a quick getaway they flex their their abdominal segments to propel them out of danger.

Take me back to Species of the Week!
Take me back to the Main Page!