When do lobsters mate? A female lobster mates mostly when she is in the
Lobsters shed their shells, or molt. A female lobster can only mate just after she has molted.
“Lobsters do have a monogamous bond, but it only lasts for two weeks,” said Trevor Corson, the author of “The Secret Life of Lobsters” (HarperCollins, 2004). “Essentially what happens is that the alpha male in the neighborhood mates successively with each of the females for two weeks each.”
A small collection of species from the crustacean family—including shrimp, lobsters and crabs—can reproduce asexually.
An adult lobster can lay up to 100,000 eggs, depending on the size of the female. The female carries her fertilized eggs externally under her tail, attached to her swimmerets, for a period of 9 to 12 months. At this point, her eggs are the size of a grain of rice, dark green in color, and have an irregular shape.
The female lobster carries the eggs inside for 9 to 12 months and then for another 9 to 12 months attached to the swimmerets under her tail. When the eggs hatch, the larvae will float near the surface for 4 to 6 weeks. The few that survive will settle to the bottom and continue to develop as baby lobsters.
A lobster with a condition known as gynandromorphy occasionally appears in a lobster trap. Literally, gynandromorphy is a condition of having female and male reproductive characteristics. The term comes from the Greek word roots “gyn” for woman, “andros” for man, and “morph” meaning shape or form.
Creatures big and small
Most animals that procreate through parthenogenesis are small invertebrates such as bees, wasps, ants, and aphids, which can alternate between sexual and asexual reproduction. Parthenogenesis has been observed in more than 80 vertebrate species, about half of which are fish or lizards.
Creating offspring without sperm
Females of these species, which include some wasps, crustaceans and lizards, reproduce only through parthenogenesis and are called obligate parthenogens.
"Lobsters, by nature, are not monogamous and do not pair for life," Curt Brown, Ready Seafood's in-house marine biologist, said in a statement to E! News.
It's a pop culture trope that mated lobsters stay together until they die. But is it true? Nope. While plenty of animals practice long-term monogamy, lobsters are not among them.
The potential mechanism for development of intersex in lobsters, which is probably related to a disrupted signalling to the germinal component of the testis from the decapod androgenic gland, may be an effect of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the marine environment.
Once the eggs are fertilized, the female lobster will gather and store them under her tail for 9 to 12 months. Because the eggs look like dark berries as they mature, female lobsters with eggs are often referred to as “berried lobsters.” On average, a female can carry between 7,500 and 10,000 eggs.
A bit confusing, yet generally speaking a unique gland determines masculinity in crustaceans, at least in those species such as lobsters, prawns, crabs and crayfish where sex does not change naturally.
Yes, apparently lobsters can live for a very long time. Scientists have found that lobsters don't show signs of aging, which could mean that a lobster may live forever if it's not killed or malnourished. The oldest captive lobster on record was 140 years of age.
J Exp Biol (2005) 208 (13): ii. While our blood cells bustle around carrying red iron-containing hemoglobin to deliver oxygen to our tissues, crabs and lobsters use a blue copper-containing protein called hemocyanin to transport their oxygen.
Probably not. Ethical considerations preclude definitive research on the subject, but it's safe to say that human DNA has become so different from that of other animals that interbreeding would likely be impossible.
Many species of fish, like the kobudai, are known as “sequential hermaphrodites”: they can switch sex permanently at a specific point in their lives. The majority of “sequential hermaphrodites” are known as “protogynous” (Greek for “female first”): they switch from female to male.
Wild house mice rely on specially evolved proteins in their urine to sniff out and avoid mating with their close relatives. In many social species the trick is that one sex, usually the female, leaves the group at adolescence. That way they can't mate with their own family.
So, while it's possible for a human baby to be born of a virgin mother, it's very, very unlikely: These two genetic deletions might each have a one in 1 billion chance of occurring, and that's not counting the calcium spike and division problem required to initiate parthenogenesis in the first place.
The discovery that condors are capable of virgin births - formally called parthenogenesis or asexual reproduction - surprised scientists. Virgin births have been recorded in other bird species, as well as lizards, snakes, sharks, rays and other fish.
Rainbow lobster. Tropical rock lobster (Panulirus ornatus) is a large spiny lobster with 11 larval stages. It migrates annually from the Torres Strait to Yule Island in the Gulf of Papua in order to breed. After the migration the sexes segregate by water depth.
Unusual colourations are due to abnormal genetics, say scientists. A genetic difference can causes some lobsters to produce more of a certain protein than others. Blue lobsters are believed to be so rare that some marine biologists estimate the chance of catching one is at about one-in-two-million.
Gynandromorphs (“gyne” from Greek meaning female, “andro” for male, and “morph” meaning variety) are individual animals that have both genetically male and female tissues and often have observable male and female characteristics.