To many, it may seem that the lobster’s most natural habitat is on
a large, oval plate between a cup of drawn butter and a lemon wedge.
In
fact, only a few of the hundreds of types of lobster are caught
commercially. But those few species are some of the most heavily
harvested creatures in the sea, and generate a multi-billion-dollar
industry, with more than 200,000 tons (181,436 metric tons) of annual
global catch.
The lobsters that most people know from their dinner plates are the American and European clawed lobsters Homarus americanus and Homarus gammarus.
These are cold water species that live on either sides of the northern
Atlantic Ocean. There are also tropical lobsters that are widely
consumed, but these are generally clawless varieties called spiny and
slipper lobsters.
Lobsters are ten-legged crustaceans closely
related to shrimp and crabs. These benthic, or bottom-dwelling,
creatures are found in all of the world’s oceans, as well as brackish
environments and even freshwater. They have poor eyesight but highly
developed senses of taste and smell. They feed primarily on fish and
mollusks, but will consume algae and other plant life and even other
lobsters.
Female lobsters carry their eggs under their abdomens
for up to a year before releasing them as larvae into the water. The
larvae go through several stages in the water column before settling on
the bottom, where they spend the rest of their lives. They generally
prefer to live in self-dug burrows, in rocky crevices, or hidden among
sea grasses. Lobsters must shed their shells in order to grow, and some
species can live to be 50 years old or more, growing continually
throughout their lives.
Lobsters have not always been considered
chic eats. In 17th- and 18th-century America, they were so abundant in
the northeast that they were often used as fertilizer. Laws were even
passed forbidding people to feed servants lobster more than twice a
week. However, improvements in U.S. transportation infrastructure in the
19th and 20th century brought fresh lobster to distant urban areas, and
its reputation as a delicacy grew.
Populations of commercially
important lobster species are thought to be declining, and overfishing,
particularly of clawed lobsters in Europe, is taking a toll.
Additionally, pollution is causing shell rot and other illnesses in
normally disease-resistant species.
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