11 Fascinating Lobster Facts You Wouldn’t Believe

Many people find lobster to be one of the most appetizing ingredients. Aside from relishing the meal, have you ever wondered about any other fascinating details pertaining to this kind of seafood? If the answer is yes, continue on as Fishermen’s Net will share 11 fascinating lobster facts with you that you have probably never considered.

1. Grow Endlessly

Since traps of lobsters fishermen are not designed to catch the largest ones, scientists have not been able to tell how long this creature actually lives. However, according to some researches, there are yet some hypotheses that lobsters can potentially get to be 100 years old. Some even weigh 30 lb or more, like the lobster jumbo.

2. Eat each other

This can be one of the surprising facts about lobster!

Like other creatures, lobsters always look for fresh food to eat to keep themselves alive. If it happens to be another lobster, it is feeding time! That is why lobster culture is hard to be profitable, since this type of seafood is cannibalistic. 

3. Taste with legs

Lobsters are claimed to have poor eyesight, but they have highly developed senses of smell and taste. They use their chemosensory legs and feet hairs to identify food. Moreover, the small antennae in front of their eyes play a role in tracking down food from further away.

There are also other facts about lobsters that you should uncover as differentiation between Canadian lobster vs Maine lobster.

4. Chew with stomach

Different from human beings, lobsters chew food with their stomachs. The grinding structure used for breaking up food is known as the gastric mill. You can imagine this part of the lobsters as a set of teeth on their stomachs which is located right behind their eyes. Usually, in a one-pound lobster, this gastric mill is at the same size as a walnut. 

5. Lobsters don’t scream in pain when being cooked

During cooking time, you may hear sound going through the mouth of the lobsters. It is not what you are thinking! Lobsters cannot speak, because they do not have vocal chords. In fact, what you hear when cooking lobsters is the sound of air that has been trapped in their stomachs. So you have nothing to be afraid of killing or cooking live lobsters.

6. Be able to exert pressure of up to 100 pounds per square inch with one of the claws

One of the other facts about lobster is that this creature can actually bring others some serious pain. One of the lobsters’ claws can exert pressure of up to 100 pounds/square inch. This claw can be seen as if it has molars, and is used to break up anything hard such as crabs, clams or mussels. 

7. Be able to regenerate limbs

According to researchers, a one-pound lobster takes about five years to regenerate a single claw. After this period of time, the claw is able to reach about the same size of which was lost. 

8. Be the go-to prison food

Nowadays, lobsters are among those expensive ingredients because the nutritions in lobster are very valuable. Therefore, this can be one of the most astonishing lobster facts for you! In the Colonial era, only servants and prisoners ate lobsters, because they were claimed to be cheap, plentiful and tasteless. 

Moreover, lobsters were once seen as the poor man’s chicken. In the Colonial era, also, this seafood type was used to feed pigs, goats and only eaten by paupers.

9. The green in cooked lobsters is liver

Technically, the green in cooked lobsters is the tomalley, it is one of the edible parts in lobster. In specific, it is known as a digestive gland which includes the intestine, liver and pancreas. 

10. Lobsters’ shells were once used to make golf balls

After processing, many leftover lobsters’ shells are tossed into landfills. To avoid wasting as well as make more money for the lobster industry, a professor from the University of Maine created golf balls with a core made out of lobsters’ shells. 

11. The female lobsters are players who make the first move

Having gone through 10 different lobster facts, let’s end this interesting list with information about female lobsters. 

When it comes to sex, female lobsters are the ones who lead the game. In addition, a female lobster can only mate when she has already molted. Right after this, female lobsters send out a pheromone as a sign that they are in the mood to the male ones. 

12. Other Facts About Lobster

Often people will divide lobsters into 2 types:

• Clawed lobsters: Have a pincer and crusher claw, which can be on either the left or right, dependent on the lobster.
• Spiny lobsters: Have the very large antenna and a harder shell than clawed lobsters.

In addition, there are 12 different types of lobster according to the water environment in which they live.