Lobster Facts
LIVE lobsters — now what? Years of customer questions built this page. Here they are, answered straight, exactly in the spirit of the original.
Can I store live lobsters in my bathtub until I cook them?
No. Maine lobsters are harvested from the icy salt water of the North Atlantic; a bathtub of fresh water will kill them before you can cook them. Keep them chilled in the refrigerator with their gills moist — damp seaweed or seawater-dampened towels in an open container.
Why do lobsters turn red when they are cooked?
A live lobster's greenish-brown pigments, held in cells called chromatophores, break down with heat — all except astaxanthin, a red background pigment. Cooking simply unmasks the red that was there all along.
Is the "Maine lobster" found only in Maine?
No. Homarus americanus ranges along the East Coast from Newfoundland to North Carolina, and many other lobster species live around the world. Maine's cold waters and careful fishery simply set the standard — see why Maine lobster for the full case.
What is the red stuff inside a lobster?
The "red stuff" is roe, or coral — the lobster's unfertilized eggs. Many consider it a delicacy.
Are large lobsters tougher than small ones?
Size doesn't toughen lobster — overcooking does. Most people detect no tenderness difference between small and large lobsters, though new-shell meat is often judged more tender than hard-shell.
Are any parts of a lobster poisonous?
No — lobster meat is perfectly safe. It is better not to eat the tomalley, the light-green substance in the carapace: it serves as the lobster's liver and pancreas, and like any animal's liver it filters environmental contaminants. The meat itself stays wholesome, nutritious and delicious.
Is a crayfish a baby lobster?
No. Crayfish are relatives, but they live in fresh or brackish water; lobsters live only in salt water.
What does a lobster's nervous system most resemble?
The grasshopper's. A lobster's nervous system is simple and decentralized, with no brain and no cerebral cortex — the structure that in humans produces the experience of pain.
How big do lobsters get, and how old?
The largest American lobster on record weighed over forty pounds and was likely decades old — lobsters never stop growing, and biologists estimate large individuals may live fifty years or more. Age is hard to measure precisely because the molt discards every part of the shell that might carry a record. Most commercial lobsters are seven to ten years old at harvest, having molted twenty-odd times to reach dinner size.
Do lobsters really mate for life?
No — that one is pure greeting-card mythology. A dominant male mates with a series of females who queue near his shelter each molting season. Lobster romance is brief, practical, and entirely unsentimental, much like the animal itself.
How does a lobster molt and grow?
The shell must be shed for the animal to grow — a process called molting. A lobster molts roughly once a year in adulthood, increasing noticeably in size each time; just after the molt it is soft, vulnerable, and busy growing into a shell sized for the year ahead. The molt cycle is the key to the hard-shell versus new-shell distinction explained in our lobster primer. For deeper biology, the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine studies everything from molt hormones to fishery health.
Now — about dinner
Armed with the facts, the practical guides await: choosing a live lobster, cooking it properly, and building a clambake around it. And if a dinner guest produces a lobster question this page cannot answer, we would genuinely like to hear it — this collection grew one stumper at a time, and the contact form keeps that tradition open.