Lobster Trivia

In honor of “National Lobster Day,” here’s some lobster trivia from The Secret Life of Lobsters, as printed in a publication called “Out & About in Downeast Maine”:

• Maine fishermen catch and sell between 55 million and 60 million pounds of lobster a year.

• It takes the average lobster from five to seven years to reach legal size. In that time it will shed its shell between 25 and 27 times.

• A female lobster will bear between 6,000 and 100,000 eggs. Fishery conservation laws in Maine prevent fishermen from keeping egg-bearing females.

• There are more than 7,000 licensed lobster fishermen in Maine. Each year they put out more than 3 million traps.

• Lobsters are naturally a greenish, yellow color. Only cooked lobsters are red. The most rare color is blue. Only about one in 2 million lobsters are blue.

• The largest lobster ever caught was pulled up off Nova Scotia and weighed just over 44 pounds. lt was believed to be more than 100 years old.

• The only legal way to catch lobsters is with a licensed trap. The largest lobsters typically found in traps weigh 15 pounds, although ones that big must be thrown back for exceeding the maximum size.

• Despite the fact they have more than 20,000 “eyes” lobsters have terrible vision and communicate by smell and sensing movement with their antenna.

I’ve got even more surprising lobster facts here.