Lobster

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For the British magazine see Lobster

Lobster
American lobster, Homarus americanus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Crustacea Class: Malacostraca Order: Decapoda Infraorder: Astacidea Family: Nephropidae Dana, 1852
Subfamilies and Genera
Neophoberinae Acanthacaris Thymopinae Nephropsis Nephropides Thymops Thymopsis Nephropinae Homarus Nephrops Homarinus Metanephrops Eunephrops Thymopides

Clawed lobsters compose a family (Nephropidae, sometimes also Homaridae) of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global industry that nets US$31.8 billion in trade annually.^{[citation needed]}

Though several different groups of crustaceans are known as "lobsters," the clawed lobsters are most often associated with the name. Clawed lobsters are not closely related to spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, which have no claws (chelae), or squat lobsters. The closest relatives of clawed lobsters are the reef lobster Enoplometopus and the three families of freshwater crayfish.

Contents 1 Biology 1.1 Symbion 2 Gastronomy 2.1 History 2.2 Catching 3 Capacity for pain 3.1 Opioids 3.2 Animal welfare issues 4 Lobsters in culture 5 List of clawed lobster species 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Biology

Lobsters are invertebrates and are found all over the world. They have a hard protective exoskeleton. Like most arthropods, lobsters must molt in order to grow, leaving them vulnerable during this time. During the molting process, several species may experience a change in color. Lobsters have 10 legs, with the front ones adapted to claws.

Lobsters live on rocky, sandy, or muddy bottoms from the shoreline to beyond the edge of the continental shelf. They generally live singly in crevices or in burrows under rocks.

Lobsters typically eat live food, consisting of fish, mollusks, other crustaceans, worms, and some plant life. Occasionally, they will scavenge if necessary, and may resort to cannibalism in captivity; however, this has not been observed in the wild. Although lobster skin has been found in the stomachs of lobsters, this is because lobsters will eat their shed skin after molting.^[1] Lobsters grow throughout their lives and it is not unusual for a lobster to live for more than 100 years.^[2] One such 100 year old lobster was donated to the Huntsman Marine Science Center in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. In fact, lobsters may exhibit "negligible senescence", in that they can effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc.^[3] They can thus reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kg (44.4 lb).

Although clawed lobsters, like most other arthropods, are largely bilaterally symmetrical, they often possess unequal, specialized claws, like the king crab. A freshly caught lobster will have a claw which is full and fleshy, not atrophied. The anatomy of the lobster includes the cephalothorax which is the head fused with the thorax, both of which are covered by the carapace, of chitinous composition, and the abdomen. The lobster's head consists of antennae, antennules, mandibles, the first and second maxillae, and the first, second, and third maxillipeds. Because a lobster lives in a murky environment at the bottom of the ocean, its vision is poor and it mostly uses its antennae as sensors. Studies have shown that the lobster eye is formed with a reflective structure atop a convex retina. In contrast, most complex eyes use refractive ray concentrators (lenses) and a concave retina.^[4] The abdomen of the lobster includes swimmerets and its tail is composed of uropods and the telson.

Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue blood due to the presence of haemocyanin, which contains copper.^[5] (In contrast, mammals and many other animals, have red blood due to the presence of haemoglobin, which contains iron.) Inside lobsters is a green goopy substance called tomalley, which serves as the hepatopancreas, fulfilling the functions of both liver and pancreas.^[6]

In general, lobsters are 25 cm to 50 cm long ( 10 to 20 inches ) and move slowly by walking on the bottom of the sea floor. However, when they flee, they swim backwards quickly by curling and uncurling their abdomen. A speed of five meters per second (about 11 mph) has been recorded.^[7] This is known as the caridoid escape reaction.

[edit] Symbion

The genus Symbion, the only member of the animal phylum Cycliophora, has only been found on the gills and mouthparts of lobsters.^[8]

[edit] Gastronomy

Lobster Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 100 kcal   410 kJ
Carbohydrates     0 g - Sugars  0 g - Dietary fibre  0 g   Fat 0.59 g - saturated  0.107 g - monounsaturated  0.091 g   - polyunsaturated  0.16 g   Protein 20.5 g Thiamine (Vit. B1)  0 mg   0% Riboflavin (Vit. B2)  4 mg   267% Niacin (Vit. B3)  4 mg   27% Pantothenic acid (B5)  2 mg  40% Vitamin B6  4 mg 308% Folate (Vit. B9)  2 μg  1% Vitamin C  0 mg 0% Calcium  6 mg 1% Iron  2 mg 16% Magnesium  8 mg 2%  Phosphorus  15 mg 2% Potassium  0 mg   0% Zinc  15 mg 150%
Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient database

Lobster recipes include Lobster Newberg and Lobster Thermidor. Lobsters are sold with claws banded to prevent them from injuring each other or people. Lobsters cannot open claws when banded, which causes the claws to atrophy. Recently banded lobsters will not show this, and the claws will be full.

Lobsters may be prepared and cooked while alive (removing claws may not kill lobsters). Cooks place the live lobster in boiling water or steam. Lobsters are also served fried, grilled, or baked. Freezing the lobster may toughen the meat. A common misconception is that a lobster screams when boiled; this is due to steam escaping the shell, creating a whistling.

When boiling, the lobster is simmered for seven minutes for the first pound and three minutes for each additional pound.^[9]

The majority of the meat is in the tail and the two front claws, but smaller quantities are in the legs and torso. Lobster is used variously, for example in soup, bisque or lobster rolls. Lobster meat is maybe dipped in clarified butter, resulting in a sweetened flavor. As with all shellfish, lobster is not kosher.

[edit] History

The European wild lobster, including the royal blue lobster of Audresselles, is more expensive and rare than the American lobster. It was consumed chiefly by the royal and aristocratic families of France and the Netherlands. Such scenes were depicted in Dutch paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In North America, the American lobster did not become a popular food until the mid-19th century, when New Yorkers and Bostonians developed a taste; not until the invention of a special vessel, the lobster smack, did a commercial fishery flourish.^[10] Prior to this time, eating lobster was considered a mark of poverty or as a food for indentured servants or lower members of society in Maine, Massachusetts and the Canadian Maritimes. Into the 1950s, people in these regions would bury lobster shells rather than dispose of them in their rubbish to not be seen to be eating lobster.^[11][12] Prior to the American Revolutionary War, dock workers in Boston went on strike, protesting having to eat lobster more than three times a week,^{[citation needed]} and servants specified in employment agreements that they would not eat lobster more than twice per week.^[13] Lobsters were used as a fertilizer for farms.^{[citation needed]} In Canada, outside of the rural outposts lobster was sold canned; New England's fresh lobster trade extended to Philadelphia.

The market for lobster changed with the transportation industry allowing live lobsters to be shipped from the ports to urban centres. Fresh lobster became a luxury food and a tourist attraction for the Maritime provinces and an export to Europe and Japan where it is especially expensive.

The high price of lobster led to creating "faux lobster". It is often made from pollock or other whitefish altered to look and taste similar to lobster. A few restaurants sell "langostino lobster". Langostino translates into prawn; the actual animal may be crab. The spiny lobster is also called langouste.

[edit] Catching

Commercial fishing
crustaceans
crab
crayfish
krill
lobster
shrimp
fishing industry
fisheries
I N D E X
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Lobsters are caught using baited, one-way traps with a color-coded marker buoy to mark cages. Lobster is fished in water between 1 and 500 fathoms, although some lobsters live at 2,000 fathoms. Cages are of plastic-coated galvanized steel or wood. A lobster fisher may tend between 10 and 2,000 traps. Around the year 2000, due to overfishing of some species and high demand lobster farming became more prevalent.^[14] As of 2008, no lobster farming operation has achieved commercial success.

[edit] Capacity for pain

Due to the ambiguous nature of suffering, the issue of lobster pain may be approached using an argument by analogy — that lobsters are similar to human biology or that behavior warrants assumptions that lobsters can feel pain.^[15]

The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety tentatively concluded that "it is unlikely that [lobsters] can feel pain," though they note that "there is apparently a paucity of exact knowledge on sentience in crustaceans, and more research is needed." This conclusion is based on the lobster's simple nervous system. The report assumes that the violent reaction of lobsters to boiling water is a reflex to noxious stimuli.^[16]

However, review by the Scottish animal rights group Advocate for Animals released in the same year reported that "scientific evidence ... strongly suggests that there is a potential for [lobsters] to experience pain and suffering," primarily because lobsters (and other decapod crustaceans) "have opioid receptors and respond to opioids (analgesics such as morphine) in a similar way to vertebrates," indicating that lobsters' reaction to injury changes when painkillers are applied. The similarities in lobsters' and vertebrates' stress systems and behavioral responses to noxious stimuli were given as additional evidence for their capacity for pain.^[15]

A 2007 study at Queen's University, Belfast, suggested that crustaceans do feel pain.^[17] In the experiment, when the antennae of prawns were rubbed with sodium hydroxide or acetic acid, the animals showed increased grooming of the afflicted area and rubbed it more against the side of the tank. Moreover, this reaction was inhibited by a local anesthetic, even though control prawns treated with only anesthetic did not show reduced activity. Professor Robert Elwood, who headed the study, argues that sensing pain is crucial to prawn survival, because it encourages them to avoid damaging behaviors. Some scientists responded, saying the rubbing may reflect an attempt to clean the affected area.^[18]

In a subsequent 2009 study, Prof. Elwood and Mirjam Appel showed that hermit crabs make motivational tradeoffs between shocks and the quality of the shells they inhabit.^[19] In particular, as crabs are shocked more intensely, they become increasingly willing to leave their current shells for new shells, and they spend less time deciding whether to enter those new shells. Moreover, because the researchers did not offer the new shells until after the electrical stimulation had ended, the change in motivational behavior was the result of memory of the noxious event, not an immediate reflex.

[edit] Opioids

In vertebrates, endogenous opioids are neurochemicals that moderate pain by interacting with opiate receptors. Opioid peptides and opiate receptors occur naturally in crustaceans, and although “at present no certain conclusion can be drawn,”^[16] some have interpreted their presence as an indication that lobsters may be able to experience pain.^[16][15] The aforementioned Scottish paper holds that lobsters' opioids may "mediate pain in the same way" as in vertebrates.^[15]

Morphine, an analgesic, and naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, may affect a related species of crustacean (Chasmagnathus granulatus) in much the same way they affect vertebrates: injections of morphine into crabs produced a dose-dependent reduction of their defensive response to an electric shock.^[20] (However, the attenuated defensive response could originate from either the analgesic or sedative properties of morphine, or both)^[21] These findings have been replicated for other invertebrate species,^[21] but similar data is not yet available for lobsters.

[edit] Animal welfare issues

The most common way of killing a lobster is by placing it, live, in boiling water, or by splitting: severing the body in half, lengthwise.

The boiling method (also used to kill crabs, crayfish and shrimp) is controversial because some believe that the lobster suffers. The practice is illegal in some places, such as in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where offenders face fines of up to €495.^[22] The Norwegian study states that the lobster may be de-sensitized by placing it in a salt solution 15 minutes before killing it.

In 2006, British inventor Simon Buckhaven invented the CrustaStun, which electrocutes lobsters with a 110 V electric shock, killing them in five seconds. This ensures a quicker death for the lobster. Seafood wholesalers in Britain use a commercial version. A home version was available about 2006.

[edit] Lobsters in culture

The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped the sea and its animals. Lobsters were often depicted in their art.^[23]

Red Lobster is a chain of seafood restaurants, founded in 1968.

Lobster (magazine) is a twice yearly British magazine (June and December) focusing on parapolitics.

Lobsters dance a "Lobster Quadrille" in the eponymous chapter of Lewis Carroll's famous book Alice in Wonderland. It and the related lobster poems can be read here: "Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?" and "Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare." ^[24]

In an episode of Friends, Phoebe Buffay speaks about the ability of lobsters to mate for life, and claims that they hold claws (instead of holding hands). Later, she refers to Ross and Rachel as "lobsters."

[edit] List of clawed lobster species

This list contains all known species in the family Nephropidae:^[25]

Acanthacaris caeca Acanthacaris tenuimana Eunephrops bairdii Eunephrops cadenasi Eunephrops luckhursti Eunephrops manningi Homarinus capensis — Cape lobster Homarus americanus — American lobster Homarus gammarus — European lobster Metanephrops andamanicus — Andaman lobster Metanephrops arafurensis Metanephrops armatus Metanephrops australiensis — Australian scampi Metanephrops binghami — Caribbean lobster Metanephrops boschmai — bight lobster Metanephrops challengeri — New Zealand scampi Metanephrops formosanus Metanephrops japonicus — Japanese lobster Metanephrops mozambicus Metanephrops neptunus Metanephrops rubellus Metanephrops sagamiensis Metanephrops sibogae Metanephrops sinensis — China lobster

Metanephrops thomsoni Metanephrops velutinus Nephropides caribaeus Nephrops norvegicus — Norway lobster Nephropsis acanthura Nephropsis aculeata — Florida lobsterette Nephropsis agassizii Nephropsis atlantica Nephropsis carpenteri Nephropsis ensirostris Nephropsis hamadai Nephropsis holthuisii Nephrops macphersoni Nephropsis malhaensis Nephropsis neglecta Nephropsis occidentalis Nephropsis rosea Nephropsis serrata Nephropsis stewarti Nephropsis suhmi Nephropsis sulcata Thymopides grobovi Thymops birsteini Thymopsis nilenta

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Homarus

• Lipke Holthuis (1991). Marine Lobsters of the World. Food and Agriculture Organization. http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/bis/lobsters.php?menuentry=inleiding. 
• Atlantic Veterinary College Lobster Science Centre
• Lobster Recipes & Cooking Lobster Guides