NOAA photo
STEPHANIE BOYD
F I S H Y FA C T S
SPINY LOBSTER All the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the imaginative men in the world could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious and so ridiculous as the lobster. ~ Charles Kingsley From time to time, when the currents are right and the winter is mild, some tropical creatures can be found in the Gulf off the Texas coast. Among these, are Caribbean spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus. Named for the many forwardpointing spines that cover both the body and antennae of this marine invertebrate, spiny lobsters conspicuously lack the large pinching claws of their Maine lobster relatives. Adults range in color from red to brown to blue, marked with occasional dark spots. The tails sport large cream or yellow spots, along with orange-yellow and black stripes on the fan. Their walking legs are striped in blue and have bristly “feet,” while the swimming legs are bright orange and black. They have two pairs of antennae. The first are slender, black or dark brown, and biramous (separated into two branches); they sense movement and detect 44 | August 2021
chemicals in the water. The second pair are longer than the body, whip-like, studded with small forward-pointing spines and setae (bristles), and are sometimes waved to scare off predators. They also have compound eyes that detect orientation, form, light, and color. Although males and females are typically the same length, sexual dimorphism is apparent in the relative size and shape of the tail: the males having somewhat lighter and shorter tails, as well as heavier carapaces. Caribbean spiny lobsters live in western Atlantic tropical and subtropical waters, ranging along the continental shelf of the southeastern United States from North Carolina to Texas, in Bermuda, throughout the Caribbean Sea, and south to Brazil. Adults are gregarious, migratory, and benthic, most commonly found in coastal and shallow continental waters in coral reefs, rocks, and eelgrass beds to depths of 295 feet. They are relatively selective when choosing a hidey hole and seem to prefer ones that allow complete concealment, exclude large predators, and contain other lobsters. Since spiny lobsters don’t have large claws to catch
