60 Fun Facts About Lobster

Lobsters are decapods, a name that literally means what?

The big front claws count as legs, which is how a creature with eight walking legs still adds up to ten.

What colour is a lobster's blood?

Snails and spiders share the same copper-based pigment; iron-based haemoglobin is what makes ours red.

Roughly how long can a lobster live in the wild?

Age is hard to measure because lobsters shed their shells, taking any growth rings with them, so estimates lean on size.

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

It repairs the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, and older lobsters may actually be more fertile than younger ones.

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

It does the job of both a liver and a pancreas, and some diners consider it the tastiest part.

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

The pigment is astaxanthin, the same one that colours salmon and flamingos; the protein crustacyanin normally hides it.

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

The 'caridoid escape reaction' has been clocked at about 5 metres per second, far faster than its usual crawl.

Symbion, the only member of its phylum, lives exclusively on which part of a lobster?

The phylum Cycliophora was only described in 1995, making it one of the newest animal phyla on the books.

In colonial New England, lobster was so abundant that it was widely regarded as food for whom?

The oft-repeated claim that laws banned feeding it to servants more than twice a week has no evidence behind it.

The first lobster cannery in the United States opened in the 1840s in Eastport, in which state?

By 1880 the state had 23 canneries and two-thirds of its 14 million-pound catch went into tins.

Which was the first country to ban boiling lobsters alive, in 2018?

Swiss law requires the animal to be stunned or killed instantly first; New Zealand and parts of Italy have followed.

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

Any lobster with the notch must be thrown back, which protects proven breeders for years.

Which purpose-built boat with open holding tanks on deck made the 19th-century live trade possible?

Before it, lobster had to be cooked within a couple of days of leaving salt water, so inland diners rarely saw it.

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

It is one of the first haute-cuisine cookbooks and its recipes were popular at the court of King Philip VI.

The largest lobster ever caught, per Guinness World Records, weighed about 20 kg (44 lb). Where was it landed?

The American lobster is the heaviest crustacean on Earth and, together with a spiny lobster, the longest decapod.

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

The plumes can travel a metre or two, and are aimed straight at whoever the lobster has noticed.

An American lobster's two front claws are different. What is the bigger, blunter one called?

The other is the cutter or gripper; which side carries the big one decides whether the lobster is 'left- or right-handed'.

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

With around 200 million lobsters caught in the North Atlantic each year, that still means about 100 blue ones annually.

What are the estimated odds of catching a lobster that is red while still alive?

Red is what every lobster turns after cooking; only a rare genetic quirk produces the colour in a living animal.

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

Split-coloured lobsters, one colour on each side, are 1 in 50 million and often show characteristics of both sexes.

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

The eggs look like raspberry segments and are carried for 10 to 11 months, so egg-bearing females can turn up in any month.

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

South of New Jersey it is rare; landings from Delaware to North Carolina make up under 0.1 per cent of the total.

For how long can a female American lobster store a male's sperm before using it to fertilise her eggs?

Mating happens only in the brief window after the female moults, while her new shell is still soft.

Only about how many lobsters that enter a lobster trap to feed are actually caught?

Maine lobsters get 35 to 55 per cent of their calories from the herring used as trap bait, so traps double as feeding stations.

Roughly what share of lobster larvae are thought to survive the planktonic stage to become juveniles?

The tiny larvae drift near the surface for two to three weeks and are eaten by almost everything.

Which US state bans scuba divers from catching lobsters, with fines of up to $1,000?

Maine is the country's largest lobster producer, and its catch comes almost entirely from traps.

Which US state is the largest producer of lobster?

The state's abundance of lobster made it a poverty food in colonial times and a luxury export today.

What colour is a living European lobster (Homarus gammarus)?

It only becomes 'lobster red' in the pot; most are caught in pots around the British Isles.

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

Spiny lobsters also migrate across the sea floor in long single-file lines, staying in touch with their antennae.

Rock lobsters, clawless with long antennae, are the biggest food export of which island nation?

Many spiny lobsters also scare off predators with a rasping screech made by rubbing their antennae against their shell.

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

Its genus name Nephrops means 'kidney eye', after its kidney-shaped compound eyes; it is also called the Dublin Bay prawn.

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

There are about 90 species and every one of them is edible.

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

Brazil argued that lobsters 'crawl along the continental shelf' and so belonged to it; France insisted that 'lobsters swim'.

The lobster roll is credited to a restaurant called Perry's, opened by 1929, in which state?

The hot buttered version is still called 'Connecticut style'; Maine's is served cold with mayonnaise.

A Maine-style lobster roll differs from the hot buttered kind mainly because it is served how?

McDonald's has sold lobster rolls as a summer special in Nova Scotia, Ontario and New England.

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

Thermidor was the eleventh month of the revolutionary year; the dish is finished with a browned cheese crust, typically Gruyère.

Legend says Lobster Newberg got its title when a restaurant fell out with captain Ben Wenberg and did what?

The story is set at Delmonico's in 1876, though no surviving Delmonico's menu lists a 'Lobster Wenberg'.

Bisque, the creamy lobster soup, may take its name from which body of water off France?

Others say it comes from 'bis cuites', cooked twice, since the shellfish are sautéed and then simmered.

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

Bill Darden and Charley Woodsby opened it in Lakeland, billed as the 'Harbor for Seafood Lovers'; the chain filed for bankruptcy in 2024.

Red Lobster's famous garlic cheese rolls, introduced in 1991, were later given what name?

They got the name in 1996 and became the chain's signature freebie.

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

John Lennon said hearing it in 1980 helped persuade him to record again after a five-year break.

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

The song also gave its name to a professional ice hockey team in the B-52's home town of Athens, Georgia.

What happened when Eddie Murphy let 1982 SNL viewers phone in to decide whether Larry the lobster would live or die?

Nearly 500,000 calls at 50 cents each came in during a 30-minute span, in one of the first experiments in interactive TV.

Salvador Dalí's 1936 'Lobster Telephone' pairs a working phone with a lobster made of what?

Dalí joked he could never understand why, when he ordered a 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?

He is voiced by Billy West with a Yiddish-inflected accent and lives in a dumpster near Planet Express.

In 'The Lobster' (2015), how many days do single hotel guests have to find a partner before becoming an animal?

Colin Farrell's character chooses a lobster because they live long, stay fertile and have blue blood 'like aristocrats'.

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

The title nods to M. F. K. Fisher's 'Consider the Oyster'; Wallace was reporting from the Maine Lobster Festival.

A mosaic in the ruins of which Roman city suggests spiny lobster was on the menu during the early empire?

Lobster was a mid-range delicacy in Roman times and was hauled inland over long distances to meet demand.

What were lobster cannery shells used for, spawning the legend of whole lobsters spread on fields?

Whole lobster was more often used as fish bait; until well into the 20th century it was mostly a cheap canned staple.

Roughly what proportion of lobsters die of exhaustion during moulting?

Very old lobsters stop moulting altogether, and their shells eventually degrade or collapse, which is what finally kills them.

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

The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act followed a London School of Economics report finding strong evidence that lobsters feel pain.

A lobster's blue blood is due to which copper-containing pigment?

Snails and spiders share the same oxygen-carrying molecule.

What is the fast backward flight swim of a lobster, produced by curling and uncurling its abdomen, called?

Speeds of 5 metres per second have been recorded.

Which 1393 French household guidebook contains no fewer than five lobster recipes?

It was aimed at women running upper-class households.

By 1880 roughly what share of Maine's 14.2-million-pound lobster catch was canned?

The state's canning industry vanished by 1895 as ice made shipping live lobsters practical.

Which grade of American lobster is the most expensive because it can be flown anywhere and arrive alive?

New-shell lobsters have the sweetest meat but are too fragile to ship far from the dock.

Under US federal law, a lobster may not be sold if its carapace exceeds what length?

The lower limit is 3 1/4 inches; a single lobster fisher may tend as many as 2,000 traps.

Who gave the American lobster its scientific name Homarus americanus in 1837?

Thomas Say had first described the species in 1817 from the New Jersey coast.

By the time it reaches minimum landing size, an American lobster may have moulted roughly how many times?

Each later moult can add 40 to 50 percent to its weight.

Lobster is Canada's most valuable seafood export. Roughly what was it worth in 2016?

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans governs the fishery under the Fisheries Act.