The Secret Life of Lobsters
How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
Chapter One
A Haul of Heritage
The oceans of the earth abound with lobsters. Lobsters with claws like
hair combs sift mud in offshore trenches. Clawless lobsters with antennae
like spikes migrate in clans in the Caribbean and the South Pacific.
Flattened lobsters with heads like shovels scurry and burrow in the
Mediterranean and the Galapagos. The eccentric diversity of the world's
lobsters has earned them some of the most whimsical names in the animal
kingdom. There is a hunchback locust lobster and a regal slipper lobster.
There are marbled mitten lobsters, velvet fan lobsters, and even a musical
furry lobster. The unicorn and buffalo blunt-horn lobsters inspire
admiration; the African spear lobster, the Arabian whip lobster, and the
rough Spanish lobster demand respect.
Nowhere in the world, however, is the seafloor as densely populated with
lobsters as in the Gulf of Maine. Though a less sophisticated creature
than some of its clawless counterparts, the American lobster, scientific
name Homarus americanus, is astonishingly abundant.
But at five o'clock on a September morni ... read full excerpt from The Secret Life of Lobsters ebook
