Lobsters stay fertile as they age—then moulting kills
Wild lobsters may live an estimated forty-five to fifty years, and research suggests they need not weaken or lose fertility with age—older animals can be more fertile. Adult tissues keep expressing telomerase, the chromosome-repair enzyme most vertebrates switch off. Longevity still ends: each moult costs more energy until exhaustion or a collapsing shell finishes them.
True clawed lobsters belong to the family Nephropidae (also Homaridae): long-bodied, muscular-tailed decapods that shelter in seafloor crevices. Three of five leg pairs bear claws, the first usually oversized. In U.S. markets only Homarus gammarus (European) and H. americanus (American) may be sold simply as “lobster.” Related “lobsters”—spiny langoustas, squat lobsters—are not close kin; reef lobsters and freshwater crayfish sit nearer on the tree.
Anatomy is arthropod armour: cephalothorax under a chitin carapace, stalked compound eyes built for reflection rather than lens refraction, and antennae that matter more than vision in murky bottoms. Blood runs blue on copper-based hemocyanin; the green tomalley serves as liver-pancreas. They grow for life, adding muscle at each moult. Guinness cites a Nova Scotia specimen of 20.15 kilograms. Escape means the caridoid reaction—curling the abdomen to shoot backward at recorded speeds near five metres per second. Tiny Symbion animals, sole members of phylum Cycliophora, live only on certain lobster gills and mouthparts.
Diet is omnivorous—fish, mollusks, worms, plants, with scavenging and, in crowded captivity, cannibalism; wild cannibalism was documented in Maine in 2012 after predators crashed and lobster numbers exploded. Humans have eaten them since Stone Age middens from Britain to Peru. Roman tables prized them; medieval French cookbooks such as Le Viandier (~1300) and Le Ménagier de Paris (1393) gave multiple recipes. Cooking turns shells orange when heat dismantles crustacyanin and frees astaxanthin’s hue—chemistry behind the familiar scarlet feast.
Source: Lobster
