Are Lobsters Ambidextrous?
An Imponderables Book
Chapter One
Are lobsters ambidextrous?
Have you ever noticed, while digging into a lobster, that one claw is significantly larger than the other, as if one claw was pumping iron and taking steroids, while the other claw was used only for riffling the pages of library books? The large claw is called the "crusher" and the smaller one the "cutter" (terms that sound like the members of a new tag team in the World Wrestling Federation). The crusher has broader and bigger teeth but moves relatively slowly. The cutter has tiny, serrated teeth and moves swiftly.
The two claws do not start out distinctly different. Lobsters shed their shells more often than Cher has plastic surgery -- they undergo three molts in the larval stage alone. When lobsters are first hatched, the two claws look identical, but with each successive stage in their development, the differences become more pronounced. It isn't until their fifth molt, and second postlarval molt, that the two claws are truly differentiated.
As you may have guessed, the crusher cl ... read full excerpt from Are Lobsters Ambidextrous?: An Imponderables Book ebook
