Lobster facts
Florida or Spiny lobster
They are also known as Crayfish, Crawfish and Rock lobster. One of the basic lobster facts that people are often not aware of is how to tell the diference between the two species. The Maine or American lobster had two large claws while the spiny lobster has two legs instead. The latin for the Maine lobster is Homarus americanus while the spiny lobster is called Panulirus argus.
Both kinds of lobsters are jointed-leg animals like their crustacean relatives the crabs and shrimps. But spiny lobsters are distinct in more ways then in name and claws. There are many species, six in the western Atlantic (P. argus being the most common), with small anatomical differences but large variations in color, ranging from dark brown to red, yellow and even blue, and mottled for camouflage.
These lobsters are found worldwide in tropical and temperate waters, Australia and South Africa are big exporters of lobster.
Spiny lobsters start life in a cluster of thousands of eggs beneath the tail of the female. There they ripen until one day...she sheds them into the open sea where they begin a perilous odyssey in the plankton, molting eleven times before finally changing into a shape that even the untrained eye can recognize as 'lobster'.
A few tiny survivors, which may have been spawned hundreds of miles away, are carried inshore by currents and settle in sea grass beds and around the roots of the red mangroves where they feed on both animal and vegetable matter. When about three inches long they again migrate to deeper water. There under ledges and in holes they hide by day and feed by night, mostly on carrion, small snails and clams. In response to the season or food availability, they move en masse, often in columns hundreds of yards long, from shallower to deeper water or along the shore.
An interesting lobster fact is that they grow by periodically molting. They cast off their old shell, swell body tissues with seawater and await the protective hardening of the new shell into which they will flesh out. Lobster growth slows as they age and molting becomes infrequent. Still, a spiny lobster in Gulf waters can attain a length of 20 inches and weigh over 10 pounds. Other species in other parts of the world grow even larger.
Spiny lobsters can crawl forward and sideways but always swim backward with flaps of their powerful tail, a gesture that presents an armored, thorny face to a potential enemy. Those include octopuses, turtles, nurse sharks and rays none of which eat them with melted butter, a la Newberg or cold with mayonnaise like their greatest enemy, man.
During the spawning season spiny lobsters are protected by law. From April 1 to August 5, none may be taken by commercial or sports fishermen. Even in open season, to be of legal size the carapace must be at least three inches long, and there is a bag limit of six per person or 24 lobsters per boat per day. Other regulations also apply; check with the Florida Marine Patrol. Phone 1-800-342-5367.
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