Marine Life

The common lobster, Homarus gammarus, is one of our biggest crustaceans. It is naturally blue in colour, only getting its famous lobster red appearance after cooking. The way a lobster can grow bigger is to moult its hard exoskeleton. This happens a few times a year as juveniles and decreases to once or twice per year as the lobster gets older. Once they have shed the shell their soft body is vulnerable so they hide out for a few weeks until the new shell has hardened.

It is a frequent sight under rocky ledges during the day on most dives but it is at night that they roam freely to scavenge and hunt on the sea floor smaller crabs, sea urchins and starfish. 


They have two different types of claw, the lobster shown below would be considered "right handed" as it has the more formidable "crusher" claw is on the right side. The lobsters left claw is called the "cutter" as it is sharper. If the lobster was to lose a claw, for example in a fight with another lobster, it would regenerate a new small claw which would be revealed after the next moult. It would take numerous moults in order to get the new claw back to full size.

The crushing claw is an invaluable tool. If it is lost the lobster would transform the cutting claw into a crushing claw on the very next moult.