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- Hi, so lobsters are
weird, and here's why.
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Lobsters weren't always a delicacy.
Though these crustaceans
were prize cuisine
during the Middle Ages in Europe,
they were so abundant in
18th and early 19th century
New England that their
meat was fed to pigs
and their shells used as fertilizer.
Indentured servants in Massachusetts
were so sick of eating it
that they won a court case
to keep their masters from
feeding lobster to them
more than three times a week.
A terrible life.
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Lobsters pee out of their
faces, for emotional purposes.
A lobster excretes waste
from a few spots on it's body
but it urinates out of
openings on it's face
called nephropores.
I feel less wasteful about leaving
that part on my plate now.
And it's not just about
getting rid of toxins.
Lobsters urinate in each other's faces
during fights to express themselves.
And lady lobsters urine
contains pheromones
that get dude lobsters in
the mood for lobster love.
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Lobsters have two stomachs
and are cannibals.
The first stomach is located
in what we would consider
the lobster's head, or
right behind it's eyes,
and contains teeth-like
things called a gastric mill
that crush the lobster's prey.
Once the food is ground
fine it passes through
to the second stomach,
a large digestive gland that
filters nutrients from waste,
sorta like your liver.
Oh, and that prey is not
infrequently other lobsters,
especially where they're
in close quarters.
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Lobsters aren't all that attached
to their limbs, literally.
Ah, ah.
They can detach a leg, claw
or antenna in an emergency.
It's called a reflex
amputation or autonomy.
And they can grow it back
during their molting cycle.
Lobsters molt in order to grow,
splitting and shedding each
hard piece of their carapace.
If they've lost a limb
since their last molt,
they'll grow it back as
they grow back their shell.
No big.
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Female lobsters practice
reproductive planning.
The female of the lobster
species chooses her mate,
makes the first move and can
carry the male's live sperm
around with her for up to two years
before using it to fertilize her eggs.
The things is she's got some
tens or thousands of eggs
so she's may collect
sperm from multiple males
before going ahead with fertilization.
Just two of every 50,000 eggs she lays
will live long enough to
become an adult lobster
of catchable size.
Their survival depends on the environment
she chooses for them so
it's good that she's picky.
And that's all the lobster
stuff we have time for now,
but you can learn more in our article,
10 Weird Lobster Facts
on howstuffworks.com
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