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Fast FactsType: Invertebrate
Diet: Omnivore
Average lifespan in the wild: 50 years
Size: Up to 3.25 feet (1 meter) long
Did you know? The largest lobster recorded was caught off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 44.4 pounds (20.14 kilograms); it was between 3 and 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 meters) long. Scientists think it was at least 100 years old.
Size relative to a tea cup:
Lobster ProfileTo many, it may seem 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.
