Amanda Martin, age 13, of Willingboro, N.J., for her question:
HOW DO YOU CATCH LOBSTERS?
Lobsters are hard shelled animals that usually live in rocky places and shallow waters along certain ocean shores. Lobster fishing is an important industry in the United States, Canada and Europe. Fishermen use traps called creels or lobster pots to catch the good tasting crustaceans.
About 70 percent of the American lobster catch is taken from the Maine coast. Lots of the lobsters are shipped live by air to restaurants and markets in all parts of the country, but much of the crop also is canned.
Lobster pots are like small cages. They have funnel shaped openings that let the lobsters enter easily but then keep them trapped inside. The traps are baited with dead fish and set out by lobster fishermen in various rocky spots near the shore. The traps are marked with buoys so they can be checked easily and quickly. Lobsters are alive when caught.
Lobsters belong to the family that includes shrimps and crawfish. Some crustaceans that are good to eat are commonly called lobsters, but they are not actually members of the true lobster group. The crawfish, as an example, often is called the rock lobster.
The experts list three species of true lobsters: the American lobster, which can be found along the Atlantic Coast from Labrador to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina; the European lobster, which is found on the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean from Norway to the Mediterranean Sea; and the African lobster, which is found off the Cape of Good Hope.
The largest members of the family are the American lobsters, which can weigh as much as 30 pounds each. The smallest are the African lobsters.
The lobster's hard shell, which acts as a suit of armor, is dark green in color when the animal is in the ocean. When it is boiled, the shell turns red. The front part of the shall is one solid piece while the back part is made up of seven segments, the last of which forms the tail.
Lobsters have four pairs of walking legs, two of which have pincers.
In front of these four pairs of legs, the lobster has two great claws. These are many times larger than the pincers on the two pairs of the walking feet. One of the claws is especially thick sad heavy. It is used for crushing objects. The other, called the fish claw, is rather slender and curved, sad has many sharp teeth. It is used to grab prey.
A lobster will balance itself on the tape of its walking feet as it moves along on the bottom of the sea. If something scares the creature, it will spring backward through the water, covering as much as 25 feet in a single huge leap.
A lobster will dart backward by powerfully jerking its paddle equipped tail down and forward, or moving more slowly backward by using the swimmerets, or swimming legs, which are attached to its abdomen.
Two pairs of feelers are attached to the lobster's head. Behind these are a pair of large eyes on stalks