American lobster
American Lobsters are a type of lobster (biological classification Homarus americanus), also known as the Northern Lobster, or the Maine Lobster. They generally thrive in cold, shallow waters where there are lots of coverings and rocks for it to hide from predators. These lobsters are unique organisms that are curious and solitary. They live a complex life outside of being eaten in which they go exploring during the night, which makes them nocturnal. Found along the coast of North America as far south as North Carolina, they are famously associated with the colder waters around the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador and Maine, where they grow to enormous sizes. They commonly range from 20cm to 60cm in length and 0.5kg to 4kg in weight, but have been known to reach lengths of well over 1 meter and weigh as much as 16kg.
This lobster's natural prey is mainly the cod and then there are others such as the haddock, the flounder, and even bigger lobsters.
Lobsters shed their shells 2-3 years while juvenile, but only once a year or even less often when fully mature, about 4 years old. When the lobster gets near its next shedding period, it will start to grow its new shell underneath its current one. The outer shell will become very hard, and darken, becoming covered with black marks that look like scratches. (They are now known, very unimaginitively, as hardshells.) The line that runs along the back of the lobsters carapace will begin to split, and the two halves of the shell will fall away. Claws and tail will be pulled out from the old outer shell, as the inner shell is very malleable. When very soft, in the first two weeks after molting, they are very vulnerable, as their shells are so soft they can neither move very fast of defend themselves with their claws. (At this point, they are ofter refered to as "turds" in the industry.) They will often fall prey to other lobsters, especially egg-bearing females, who become very defensive when carrying their eggs.
Eggs are green, and very small, about 1mm in diameter. They are carried by the female on the underside of the tail for a period of about one month, whereupon they are released and hatch. The number of eggs carried by a single female can range well into the tens of thousands, but the survival rate is very low, speculated at around 0.1 percent.
For a lobster to be kept by fishermen in the United States, the carapace must span at least 3 and 1/4 inches between the eye socket and the first tail joint. In Maine, there is also a legal maximum of 5 inches, but in some states, such as Massachusetts, there is none. To protect known breeding females, lobsters that are caught carrying eggs are to be notched on a tail flipper (second from the right, if the lobster is right-side up and the tail is fully extended). Following this, the female cannot be kept or sold, and is commonly referred to as a "punch-tail".
These lobsters are popular food, and commonly boiled or steamed; for either method, they must be alive until they are cooked (to avoid food poisoning). They can survive out of water for a up to two whole days if kept refrigerated.
