47 Fun Facts About Lobster

Which Friends character tells the gang that lobsters fall in love and mate for life?

Phoebe: when Rachel kisses Ross after watching their old prom video, Phoebe declares, 'See, he's her lobster.'

What colour does a lobster's blood turn when it picks up oxygen?

Blue: a lobster's blood carries oxygen with copper instead of iron, and it looks almost colourless until that copper binds oxygen.

What does Homer Simpson name the lobster he buys to fatten up and eat, but keeps as a pet?

Pinchy: Homer can't bring himself to cook his new pet, then accidentally boils him in a hot bath and sobs while eating him.

Which enzyme, usually off in adult vertebrates, do lobsters keep producing, possibly explaining their longevity?

Telomerase: it repairs the protective caps on chromosome ends, and a 1998 study found high levels in every lobster organ, helping adult cells keep dividing.

The green substance inside a cooked lobster, called tomalley by cooks, is which organ?

The hepatopancreas: it does the work of a liver and a pancreas, and because toxins can build up in it, the FDA advises people not to eat it.

Why does a lobster's shell change to bright red when it is cooked?

Heat destroys a masking protein: crustacyanin binds the red pigment astaxanthin, so live lobsters look olive-green or brown until cooking breaks the protein apart.

How does a lobster move when it needs to flee quickly?

Swims backward by flexing its tail: the huge abdominal muscles that power this escape flip are the tail meat people eat.

In which Lewis Carroll book do the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon perform the 'Lobster Quadrille'?

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: in the Mock Turtle's seaside dance, partners throw the lobsters as far out to sea as they can, then swim after them.

The legend of servants refusing lobster more than twice a week was earlier told about which fish?

Salmon: an 1893 town history says its poor protested being served salmon more than twice a week, and historians have found no proof for either version.

During England's Civil War, what first earned some cavalrymen the jibe 'lobsters'?

Their jointed armour: Sir Arthur Haselrig's heavily armoured horsemen were the 'London lobsters', and the jibe later passed to Britain's red-coated soldiers.

Which country outlawed boiling lobsters alive in 2018, requiring them to be stunned first?

Switzerland: the law followed studies suggesting lobsters have advanced nervous systems and may feel pain, and it also bans shipping them alive on ice.

What does the 'V-notch' cut into a lobster's tail by American lobstermen indicate?

A female that carried eggs: fishermen notch egg-bearing females before releasing them, and nobody may keep a notched lobster, so proven breeders go on producing eggs.

Which purpose-built boat with seawater tanks on board made the 19th-century live lobster trade possible?

The smack: seawater flowing through its tanks kept lobsters alive on the way to city markets, so the catch no longer had to be sold near shore.

Which French cookbook from around 1300 suggests lobster be 'cooked in wine and water, or in the oven'?

Le Viandier de Taillevent: it is credited to royal cook Guillaume Tirel, yet its earliest known version was written about ten years before he was born.

Where was the lobster caught in 1977 that Guinness World Records lists as the heaviest?

Nova Scotia, Canada: lobsters keep growing with each moult, which is how that American lobster reached about 44 pounds.

How does an American lobster tell rivals and potential mates what and where it is?

By squirting urine from its head: its bladders open near the base of its antennae, and a forward water current carries the scent signal ahead of it.

What is the bigger, blunter of an American lobster's two front claws called?

The crusher: its rounded, toothy nodules pulverise shells, while the sharper cutter claw tears soft flesh.

Roughly how rare is a blue lobster, according to the usual estimate?

1 in 2 million: lucky finders usually spare blue lobsters from the pot, often donating them to public aquariums.

In a 2003 study, what did Caribbean spiny lobsters carried up to 37 km use to orient homeward?

Earth's magnetic field: because the field differs from place to place it can work like a map, and the lobsters oriented as if reading one.

Which lobster colouring is the rarest of all, seen roughly once in every 100,000,000 animals?

Albino or white lobsters, lacking all shell pigment, are put at 1 in 100 million, rarer even than split two-tone lobsters, one colour on each side, which are estimated at 1 in 50 million.

A female lobster whose swimmerets are loaded with eggs is said to be what?

In berry: she carries the eggs for about nine to eleven months, then sets the hatching larvae free in batches by waving her tail.

The American lobster's natural range runs from Labrador south to which point?

The range ends at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; south of New Jersey the species is rare, and landings from Delaware to North Carolina make up under 0.1 per cent of the total.

Of the lobsters that enter a baited trap to feed, about how many end up caught?

6 in 100: the other 94 walk right back out, making the classic lobster trap a surprisingly inefficient tool.

Where does a lobster grind its food with hardened, tooth-like plates?

In its stomach: a gastric mill of one central tooth flanked by lateral teeth grinds the food, working much like a turkey's gizzard.

At what time of day are lobsters most active?

At night: by day they shelter among rocks and in crevices, hiding from predators, then come out after dark to feed.

Lobster eyes focus light by which method, later copied in X-ray telescopes?

Reflection from mirrored facets: most animal eyes bend light with lenses, but a lobster's bounces it off reflective surfaces, a layout that gives X-ray telescopes a very wide view.

How can you tell a rock lobster from a 'true' clawed lobster at a glance?

Antennae long, claws absent: spiny lobsters also march across the sea floor in long single-file lines, keeping in touch with those antennae.

Rock lobsters are the biggest food export of which island nation?

Bahamas: its national parks protect mangrove shallows where young lobsters settle among the roots before moving out to the reefs.

The scampi or langoustine served in restaurants is the tail meat of which slim, coral-coloured species?

Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, is the langoustine of French menus and the Dublin Bay prawn of Ireland; its genus name means 'kidney eye', after its kidney-shaped compound eyes.

Australia's Moreton Bay bug and Balmain bug are which kind of lobster, with plate-like antennae?

Slipper lobsters: despite the name they aren't true lobsters but closer kin to spiny lobsters, and those broad plates are their second antennae.

The 1961-63 'Lobster War' over spiny lobster fishing pitted France against which country?

Brazil: it argued lobsters crawl along its continental shelf and so belonged to it, while France insisted they swim and could be caught by anyone.

The lobster roll is often credited to Perry's, a restaurant serving it by 1929, in which state?

Connecticut: yet others suspect the first ones were made by fishermen tucking leftover lobster meat into bread.

How is a Maine-style lobster roll served?

A Maine-style roll is served cold with mayonnaise, the chilled meat lightly dressed and piled into a split-top bun; the hot version is tossed in melted butter instead.

Lobster Thermidor is named after an 1891 play by Victorien Sardou, which was itself named after what?

A calendar month: Thermidor was the eleventh month of France's Revolutionary calendar, and Sardou's play was so controversial that the authorities shut it down.

Which French poet is said to have walked a pet lobster on a blue ribbon in the Palais-Royal?

Gérard de Nerval: his friend Théophile Gautier recalled him asking why a lobster should be any more ridiculous than a dog, adding that lobsters don't bark.

The first Red Lobster restaurant opened in 1968 in which state?

Florida: the chain that grew from that Lakeland restaurant filed for bankruptcy in 2024, after troubles including costly leases and an all-you-can-eat shrimp deal.

'Rock Lobster' was the debut single of which American band?

The B-52's: the song launched their career and helped their 1979 debut album sell more than 500,000 copies.

Which musician said hearing 'Rock Lobster' persuaded him to start recording again in 1980?

John Lennon: he said the song sounded just like Yoko Ono's music, and he went back to recording for Double Fantasy, released weeks before he was killed.

Salvador Dalí's 'Lobster Telephone' pairs a working phone with a lobster made of what?

Plaster: the painted lobster sits on a working telephone, and Dalí joked that when he ordered grilled lobster he was never served a boiled telephone.

Dr. Zoidberg, the lobster-like alien doctor in Futurama, comes from a planet with what name?

Decapod 10: Billy West built Zoidberg's Yiddish-tinged voice by blending two old showmen, vaudevillian George Jessel and actor Lou Jacobi.

Which essayist's 2004 Gourmet piece 'Consider the Lobster' asked whether boiling them alive is right?

David Foster Wallace: Gourmet sent him to review the Maine Lobster Festival, and he turned that assignment into a question of whether the animals can suffer.

What did farmers use 19th-century lobster canneries' discarded shells as?

Fertiliser: farmers hauled cannery refuse onto their fields, which startled visitors who assumed they were ploughing whole lobsters into the soil.

Since 2022, lobsters have been legally recognised as sentient beings in which country?

The UK: its Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was extended to lobsters, crabs and octopuses after a London School of Economics review found strong evidence they are sentient.

Which copper-containing pigment carries oxygen in a lobster's blood?

Hemocyanin: it binds oxygen with copper instead of iron, and a sea snail's version triggers such a strong immune response that it is used to develop vaccines.

What does a lobster's balance organ contain to tell it which way is up?

Grains of sand: sensory hairs poke into the cemented grains, and as the lobster tilts, their weight presses on the hairs, much like our inner ear.

What does a lobster typically do with its old shell after moulting?

A freshly moulted lobster usually eats its cast-off shell, recovering minerals that help harden the soft new one over the following weeks.

A lobster's shell is chitin hardened mainly with which mineral?

Calcium carbonate: mixed with chitin it makes a far harder composite, which is why a freshly moulted lobster stays soft until minerals are laid back into its new shell.