Have you ever been enlightened with the spectacular tales of the American lobster? I sure have, and it is quite the nailbiter. The lobster’s indeterminate battles with villainous predators that prowl the reefs beneath the waves. The unfortunate and short-lived encounters with humans and their metal pots of boil. But most ironically, the lobster’s inevitable demise ergo its anatomy’s constantly growing frame perpetuating a self-inflicted death. Whether these circumstances come unbeknownst to your previous knowledge of America’s renowned crustaceans, or has occupied your awareness prior, there is no question that the story of the American lobster in most peoples’ eyes is limited to that of an evening’s mouthwatering entrée.
Imagine your family takes a trip to the coast, fiending for a seaside dinner accompanied by a seafood delicacy. You’re surrounded by pointed strip lights hanging from the aesthetically pleasing false-wood ceilings. Endowed with dark oak benches as seats, and circular plastic surfaces, hidden by bleach white cloths as tables. Where there lies, beneath your anticipating hands, a crispy red lobster tail, basted in a whisked concoction of butter, garlic, and herbs. This meal did not come without a cost. The cost of a long and adventurous life of an American lobster.
The lobster is born into his larval stage amongst his one-hundred-thousand brothers and sisters, and there he encounters his first quest of life. As his thin and microscopic body floats to the warm surface of his deep blue home, his life is at the hands of an endless array of predators. A bloodbath commences as his defenseless brothers and sisters are eaten left and right by menacing monkfish and cod. And after those tumultuous four to six vulnerable weeks, surrounded by bloodshed and war, he remains with only three other fortunate souls. As the lobster and his scarce siblings venture forth in their mission for survival, they approach the juvenile age where, one-by-one, they are kidnapped by menacing traps of mesh rope, and placed on your family’s dinner plates less than a week later. But if the lobster can hide and evade the deathly grasp of humans, his quest continues down a path of unforeseen fulfillment; a journey of a new frontier, if you will.
It is a widely held misconception that lobsters are immortal. Though, it is true that the great American lobsters possess a predisposed gift when they enter this life. Their holy grail strands of DNA are capped with an infinite supply of telomeres, sections of DNA that protect from cell degradation. With most animals, their telomeres degrade through the process of aging, ultimately leading animals to age and die from that point forward. Since the American lobster holds an infinite supply of this aging defying quality, they never stop growing. Considering they hold this rare and seemingly impossible solution to biological immortality, people assume lobsters would keep growing and could theoretically live forever, but that’s not exactly the case.
After the lobster escapes the dooms of humankind, he carries on with his pursuits of continuation. He shares his coral habitat with numerous enemies. Eels creep into his den at night, but undiscovered to them are the lobsters constantly growing claws, ready to snap any heathen in his path. His long-lost crustacean brothers, the green crabs, often seek shelter from the dangers of the open, and the lobster will undoubtedly skulk and slay any crab that crosses his territory. The lobster will continue this journey of war and security for decades on end. Protecting his kingdom with full effort. At this point in the lobster’s life, he is massive in size, strong in build, sharp in mind, and old in age. And just as his body and mind are in their prime at a ripe age of one hundred, he has one last quarrel to endure: his own skin. As his enormous size grows due to his gifted genetics, the effort it takes to molt grows with it. He is so massive that the exhaustion to escape his own skin is too much, and he meets his inevitable end, being trapped, and suffocated by his own exoskeleton. Mother Nature will always find a way to kill off the seemingly impenetrable, whether it be at the hand of another, or that of your own skin. Nevertheless, at least this American lobster lived a life of adventure, not limited to a boiled feast for the unappreciative.
Bibliography
Osterloff, Emily. “Are Lobsters Immortal?” Natural History Museum, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-lobsters-immortal.html#:~:text=A%20study%20of%20American%20lobsters,regenerating%20telomers%2C%20putting%20off%20senescence.
“Life Cycle & Reproduction – Lobster Institute – University of Maine.” Lobster Institute, https://umaine.edu/lobsterinstitute/educational-resources/life-cycle-reproduction/#:~:text=Lobsters%20reach%20adulthood%20after%205,Molting%3A&text=After%20this%20time%2C%20the%20lobster,every%20two%20years%20(female).
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