97 Fun Facts About Lobster

Which Friends character tells the gang that lobsters fall in love and mate for life?

Phoebe: when Rachel kisses Ross after watching their old prom video, Phoebe declares, 'See, he's her lobster.'

What colour does a lobster's blood turn when it picks up oxygen?

Blue: a lobster's blood carries oxygen with copper instead of iron, and it looks almost colourless until that copper binds oxygen.

What does Homer Simpson name the lobster he buys to fatten up and eat, but keeps as a pet?

Pinchy: Homer can't bring himself to cook his new pet, then accidentally boils him in a hot bath and sobs while eating him.

Which enzyme, usually off in adult vertebrates, do lobsters keep producing, possibly explaining their longevity?

Telomerase: it repairs the protective caps on chromosome ends, and a 1998 study found high levels in every lobster organ, helping adult cells keep dividing.

The green substance inside a cooked lobster, called tomalley by cooks, is which organ?

The hepatopancreas: it does the work of a liver and a pancreas, and because toxins can build up in it, the FDA advises people not to eat it.

Why does a lobster's shell change to bright red when it is cooked?

Heat destroys a masking protein: crustacyanin binds the red pigment astaxanthin, so live lobsters look olive-green or brown until cooking breaks the protein apart.

How does a lobster move when it needs to flee quickly?

Swims backward by flexing its tail: the huge abdominal muscles that power this escape flip are the tail meat people eat.

In which Lewis Carroll book do the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon perform the 'Lobster Quadrille'?

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: in the Mock Turtle's seaside dance, partners throw the lobsters as far out to sea as they can, then swim after them.

The legend of servants refusing lobster more than twice a week was earlier told about which fish?

Salmon: an 1893 town history says its poor protested being served salmon more than twice a week, and historians have found no proof for either version.

During England's Civil War, what first earned some cavalrymen the jibe 'lobsters'?

Their jointed armour: Sir Arthur Haselrig's heavily armoured horsemen were the 'London lobsters', and the jibe later passed to Britain's red-coated soldiers.

Which country outlawed boiling lobsters alive in 2018, requiring them to be stunned first?

Switzerland: the law followed studies suggesting lobsters have advanced nervous systems and may feel pain, and it also bans shipping them alive on ice.

What does the 'V-notch' cut into a lobster's tail by American lobstermen indicate?

A female that carried eggs: fishermen notch egg-bearing females before releasing them, and nobody may keep a notched lobster, so proven breeders go on producing eggs.

Which purpose-built boat with seawater tanks on board made the 19th-century live lobster trade possible?

The smack: seawater flowing through its tanks kept lobsters alive on the way to city markets, so the catch no longer had to be sold near shore.

Which French cookbook from around 1300 suggests lobster be 'cooked in wine and water, or in the oven'?

Le Viandier de Taillevent: it is credited to royal cook Guillaume Tirel, yet its earliest known version was written about ten years before he was born.

Where was the lobster caught in 1977 that Guinness World Records lists as the heaviest?

Nova Scotia, Canada: lobsters keep growing with each moult, which is how that American lobster reached about 44 pounds.

How does an American lobster tell rivals and potential mates what and where it is?

By squirting urine from its head: its bladders open near the base of its antennae, and a forward water current carries the scent signal ahead of it.

What is the bigger, blunter of an American lobster's two front claws called?

The crusher: its rounded, toothy nodules pulverise shells, while the sharper cutter claw tears soft flesh.

Roughly how rare is a blue lobster, according to the usual estimate?

1 in 2 million: lucky finders usually spare blue lobsters from the pot, often donating them to public aquariums.

In a 2003 study, what did Caribbean spiny lobsters carried up to 37 km use to orient homeward?

Earth's magnetic field: because the field differs from place to place it can work like a map, and the lobsters oriented as if reading one.

Which lobster colouring is the rarest of all, seen roughly once in every 100,000,000 animals?

Albino or white lobsters, lacking all shell pigment, are put at 1 in 100 million, rarer even than split two-tone lobsters, one colour on each side, which are estimated at 1 in 50 million.

A female lobster whose swimmerets are loaded with eggs is said to be what?

In berry: she carries the eggs for about nine to eleven months, then sets the hatching larvae free in batches by waving her tail.

The American lobster's natural range runs from Labrador south to which point?

The range ends at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; south of New Jersey the species is rare, and landings from Delaware to North Carolina make up under 0.1 per cent of the total.

Of the lobsters that enter a baited trap to feed, about how many end up caught?

6 in 100: the other 94 walk right back out, making the classic lobster trap a surprisingly inefficient tool.

Where does a lobster grind its food with hardened, tooth-like plates?

In its stomach: a gastric mill of one central tooth flanked by lateral teeth grinds the food, working much like a turkey's gizzard.

At what time of day are lobsters most active?

At night: by day they shelter among rocks and in crevices, hiding from predators, then come out after dark to feed.

Lobster eyes focus light by which method, later copied in X-ray telescopes?

Reflection from mirrored facets: most animal eyes bend light with lenses, but a lobster's bounces it off reflective surfaces, a layout that gives X-ray telescopes a very wide view.

How can you tell a rock lobster from a 'true' clawed lobster at a glance?

Antennae long, claws absent: spiny lobsters also march across the sea floor in long single-file lines, keeping in touch with those antennae.

Rock lobsters are the biggest food export of which island nation?

Bahamas: its national parks protect mangrove shallows where young lobsters settle among the roots before moving out to the reefs.

The scampi or langoustine served in restaurants is the tail meat of which slim, coral-coloured species?

Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, is the langoustine of French menus and the Dublin Bay prawn of Ireland; its genus name means 'kidney eye', after its kidney-shaped compound eyes.

Australia's Moreton Bay bug and Balmain bug are which kind of lobster, with plate-like antennae?

Slipper lobsters: despite the name they aren't true lobsters but closer kin to spiny lobsters, and those broad plates are their second antennae.

The 1961-63 'Lobster War' over spiny lobster fishing pitted France against which country?

Brazil: it argued lobsters crawl along its continental shelf and so belonged to it, while France insisted they swim and could be caught by anyone.

The lobster roll is often credited to Perry's, a restaurant serving it by 1929, in which state?

Connecticut: yet others suspect the first ones were made by fishermen tucking leftover lobster meat into bread.

How is a Maine-style lobster roll served?

A Maine-style roll is served cold with mayonnaise, the chilled meat lightly dressed and piled into a split-top bun; the hot version is tossed in melted butter instead.

Lobster Thermidor is named after an 1891 play by Victorien Sardou, which was itself named after what?

A calendar month: Thermidor was the eleventh month of France's Revolutionary calendar, and Sardou's play was so controversial that the authorities shut it down.

Which French poet is said to have walked a pet lobster on a blue ribbon in the Palais-Royal?

Gérard de Nerval: his friend Théophile Gautier recalled him asking why a lobster should be any more ridiculous than a dog, adding that lobsters don't bark.

The first Red Lobster restaurant opened in 1968 in which state?

Florida: the chain that grew from that Lakeland restaurant filed for bankruptcy in 2024, after troubles including costly leases and an all-you-can-eat shrimp deal.

'Rock Lobster' was the debut single of which American band?

The B-52's: the song launched their career and helped their 1979 debut album sell more than 500,000 copies.

Which musician said hearing 'Rock Lobster' persuaded him to start recording again in 1980?

John Lennon: he said the song sounded just like Yoko Ono's music, and he went back to recording for Double Fantasy, released weeks before he was killed.

Salvador Dalí's 'Lobster Telephone' pairs a working phone with a lobster made of what?

Plaster: the painted lobster sits on a working telephone, and Dalí joked that when he ordered grilled lobster he was never served a boiled telephone.

Dr. Zoidberg, the lobster-like alien doctor in Futurama, comes from a planet with what name?

Decapod 10: Billy West built Zoidberg's Yiddish-tinged voice by blending two old showmen, vaudevillian George Jessel and actor Lou Jacobi.

Which essayist's 2004 Gourmet piece 'Consider the Lobster' asked whether boiling them alive is right?

David Foster Wallace: Gourmet sent him to review the Maine Lobster Festival, and he turned that assignment into a question of whether the animals can suffer.

What did farmers use 19th-century lobster canneries' discarded shells as?

Fertiliser: farmers hauled cannery refuse onto their fields, which startled visitors who assumed they were ploughing whole lobsters into the soil.

Since 2022, lobsters have been legally recognised as sentient beings in which country?

The UK: its Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was extended to lobsters, crabs and octopuses after a London School of Economics review found strong evidence they are sentient.

Which copper-containing pigment carries oxygen in a lobster's blood?

Hemocyanin: it binds oxygen with copper instead of iron, and a sea snail's version triggers such a strong immune response that it is used to develop vaccines.

What does a lobster's balance organ contain to tell it which way is up?

Grains of sand: sensory hairs poke into the cemented grains, and as the lobster tilts, their weight presses on the hairs, much like our inner ear.

What does a lobster typically do with its old shell after moulting?

A freshly moulted lobster usually eats its cast-off shell, recovering minerals that help harden the soft new one over the following weeks.

A lobster's shell is chitin hardened mainly with which mineral?

Calcium carbonate: mixed with chitin it makes a far harder composite, which is why a freshly moulted lobster stays soft until minerals are laid back into its new shell.

The 'lobster mushroom' sold to cooks for its seafood-like flavour is not truly a mushroom but what?

A parasitic fungus, Hypomyces lactifluorum, grows over milk-caps and brittlegills and turns them the reddish orange of a cooked lobster.

Sebastian, King Triton's red court composer in Disney's The Little Mermaid, is which kind of sea creature?

A crab, not a lobster: Sebastian also serves as King Triton's adviser and sings Under the Sea, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Before lobster became a luxury, in which form was it sold as a cheap staple well into the 20th century?

Canned lobster was a low-priced staple, and the animal was so plentiful on North American coasts that it was often used as fish bait.

Jewish dietary law rules out lobster because kosher sea creatures must have fins and which other feature?

Scales and fins are the test for kosher seafood, so every shellfish fails it; locusts are the only invertebrates the rules permit.

How do hundreds of Caribbean spiny lobsters travel together when they cross the open sea floor each autumn?

In single-file lines the lobsters march across the bottom; nobody knows why, though the onset of autumn storms may trigger it.

Red Lobster reported a 33% sales jump in 2016 after being name-checked in which Beyoncé single?

Formation arrived without warning and Beyoncé performed it at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show, sending fans to the seafood chain.

Which director, later of The Favourite and Poor Things, made The Lobster (2015) as his English-language debut?

Yorgos Lanthimos, a Greek filmmaker, co-wrote The Lobster with Efthimis Filippou and was also one of its producers.

In The Lobster (2015), David checks into the hotel with his brother Bob, who has already been turned into what?

A dog is what Bob became after failing to pair off, and David looks after him until a heartless fellow guest kills the animal.

Along with reef lobsters, which animals are the closest living relatives of the clawed lobsters?

Crayfish, in three freshwater families, are close kin of clawed lobsters, while the clawless spiny lobsters are not closely related.

Which star of In Bruges plays David, the newly single man sent to the hotel, in The Lobster (2015)?

Colin Farrell took the part after Jason Clarke, the original choice, left over a scheduling clash with Everest.

Bill Darden, founder of Red Lobster, gave his name to the restaurant group behind which Italian-American chain?

Olive Garden opened its first restaurant in 1982, and its sales per restaurant soon grew to match those of Red Lobster.

On a classic surf and turf plate, lobster tail is traditionally paired with which other luxury food?

Beef steak, usually filet mignon, supplies the turf; the pairing first thrived in the 'lobster palaces' of late 19th-century America.

The meaty lobster 'tail' served in restaurants is, in anatomical terms, which section of the animal's body?

The abdomen is what diners call the tail; the true tail fan at its tip is made up of the uropods and the telson.

A spring-loaded 'lobster clasp', named for its pinching claw shape, is most often found fastening what?

Necklaces and bracelets close with a lobster clasp, a tiny sprung lever also sold as a lobster claw or trigger clasp.

In SpongeBob SquarePants, what job does the weightlifting Larry the Lobster hold down in Bikini Bottom?

Lifeguard is Larry's day job, and the bodybuilding lobster shares a voice actor with the scheming Plankton.

Which 1977 Woody Allen comedy began filming with a scene of Alvy and his girlfriend boiling live lobsters?

Annie Hall opened its shoot with the lobster scene on Long Island's South Fork and went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Which Canadian psychologist's bestseller 12 Rules for Life uses lobsters to explain how social hierarchies form?

Jordan Peterson draws on lobster behaviour and nerve structures to back his first rule, which is about standing tall with good posture.

At a traditional New England clambake, lobsters and clams are steamed in a pit over layers of what?

Seaweed, traditionally rockweed gathered at the shoreline, gives off the salty steam that cooks the seafood.

The Lobster had its world premiere in May 2015 at which film festival, where it won the Jury Prize?

Cannes had The Lobster in competition for the Palme d'Or, and the film left with the Jury Prize and a Queer Palm special mention.

Around the 1770 Boston Massacre, which soldiers did American colonists taunt as 'lobsters' and 'bloody backs'?

British regulars wore red coats, a near-perfect match for a boiled lobster, and 'bloody backs' also mocked the floggings they received.

Which cereal giant bought the five-restaurant Red Lobster chain in 1970 and expanded it across America?

General Mills owned the chain for 25 years before spinning its restaurants off as Darden in 1995.

Which future Best Actress Oscar winner for The Favourite plays the hotel manager in The Lobster (2015)?

Olivia Colman won Best Supporting Actress at the British Independent Film Awards for running the film's sinister hotel.

In The Lobster (2015), which shared trait draws David to the woman he secretly courts among the loners?

Being short-sighted is the match they share, since hotel guests in the film pair off over such traits as a limp, a lisp or nosebleeds.

The Lobster (2015) received its only Academy Award nomination, at the 2017 ceremony, in which category?

Best Original Screenplay was the nomination, and the same script won its two writers the European Film Award for screenwriting.

In which country was The Lobster (2015) filmed, with a real seaside resort at Parknasilla standing in as the hotel?

Ireland supplied the locations: the capital stood in for the film's unnamed City and the woodland scenes were shot in County Kerry.

George, a 20-pound lobster said to be 140 years old, was freed in 2009 from a seafood restaurant in which city?

New York diners posed for photos with George for about ten days before a PETA campaign saw him driven north and released off Maine.

Which Maine harbour city hosts the annual Maine Lobster Festival, held in honour of its chief export?

Rockland celebrates the crustacean as its primary export, and the city also stages the North Atlantic Blues Festival.

Shediac, home to a 90-ton sculpture billed as the World's Largest Lobster, lies in which Canadian province?

New Brunswick's Shediac calls itself the Lobster Capital of the World and holds a festival every July to celebrate its lobster fishing.

In which Stephen King fantasy series do beach-dwelling 'lobstrosities' attack the gunslinger Roland?

The Dark Tower's second volume, The Drawing of the Three, opens with Roland waking on a beach as the lobster-like creatures close in.

Lobster Johnson, a vigilante who burns a claw symbol into mobsters' foreheads, belongs to which comic-book universe?

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola invented Lobster Johnson as a pulp-style hero of the 1930s, also known simply as the Claw.

A rare 'split' lobster, which often shows traits of both sexes, has different colours on which parts of its body?

Left and right sides develop independently in these lobsters, a condition put at about one catch in 50 million.

Which tropical plant genus, also known as false bird-of-paradise, goes by the common name 'lobster-claws'?

Heliconia flowers look like lobster claws, and their likeness to true bird-of-paradise blooms earned the plants their other nickname.

Rock lobster is a major export of which South Atlantic island, considered the most remote inhabited place on Earth?

Tristan da Cunha counts its lobster fishery among its main exports, alongside the island's postage stamps and coins.

Which actress narrates The Lobster (2015) and plays the woman David falls for among the loners in the woods?

Rachel Weisz joined the cast after Elizabeth Olsen turned the role down because of her commitment to Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In The Lobster (2015), how can hotel guests earn extra days before they are turned into animals?

Tranquillising loners on hunts in the forest earns one extra day per capture, and the film's cruellest guest has bagged more than anyone.

Which indie distributor, later behind the Best Picture winner Moonlight, bought the US rights to The Lobster in 2016?

A24 picked up the film after the cash-strapped Alchemy sold its US rights, pushing the American release back to May 2016.

Which ancient people of Peru prized lobster as food and mass-produced lobster-shaped effigy vessels?

The Moche ate lobster between about 50 and 800 CE and turned the shells into a light pink dye, ornaments and tools.

The oldest known fossils of clawed lobsters date back about 140 million years to which geological period?

Cretaceous rocks hold the earliest clawed lobsters, so the family was already on the sea floor while dinosaurs ruled the land.

Which fish, the usual bait in Maine lobster traps, supplies up to half of some lobsters' calories?

Herring from traps gives Maine lobsters 35–55% of their calories, since most of them eat the bait and walk back out.

Under Maine law, what must every lobster boat display so that it can be matched to the traps it hauls?

Its buoy colours, filed with the licence, must be visible on both sides of the boat, and hauling a trap under other colours is illegal.

Lobster traps in Maine must carry a 'ghost panel' held shut by clips that rust away, for what purpose?

To free the catch if lost: once the metal clips corrode the panel opens, so an abandoned trap cannot keep catching animals.

The baited first compartment of a traditional two-part lobster trap is named after which room of a house?

Kitchen is the fishers' word for the baited chamber, and a modern trap around it may be built of wire, wood or rigid plastic.

In northern Scotland, which word was traditionally used for the trap known elsewhere as a lobster pot?

Creel is the Scottish word; whatever the name, the trap relies on a one-way tunnel of netting that lets a lobster in but not out.

Ebenezer Thorndike is credited with inventing the lobster trap in 1808 in Swampscott, a town in which state?

Massachusetts also claims the wooden lath trap, said to have appeared on Cape Cod by 1810 before American firms carried the design farther north.

A lobster gauge checks legal size by measuring from the eye socket to the rear edge of which body part?

The carapace must reach 3.25 inches or the lobster goes back, and Maine also returns any over 5 inches to protect big breeders.

Which gaff-rigged sailing boat, which one man could handle alone, did Maine lobstermen use before engines took over?

Friendship sloop builders around Muscongus Bay turned the boats out from the 1880s, and once motors won they became affordable yachts.

Which endangered marine mammal's risk of entanglement in fishing gear cost Gulf of Maine lobster its eco-label in 2022?

The right whale of the North Atlantic can tangle in the ropes of lobster pots, which is why ropeless traps are now being developed.

Canadian and American lobster boats both fish the disputed 'grey zone' around which outpost in the Gulf of Maine?

Machias Seal Island is claimed by both countries, so each manages its own lobster fishery there, and a dispute between crews flared in 2002.

Which French star of the Bond film Spectre plays the ruthless leader of the loners in The Lobster (2015)?

Léa Seydoux plays the Loner Leader, who bans all romance among her forest followers and punishes it with mutilation.

Lobstering is classed as hazardous work largely because crew can be dragged overboard by what?

The trap line can snag a fisherman as pots go over the side, so safety guidance covers avoiding the rope and getting crew back aboard.