Cephalopods, Crustaceans & Other Shellfish
American Lobster
Homarus americanus
Also known as
Atlantic lobster, true lobster, lobster
Distribution
Temperate waters of northwest Atlantic, from Labrador to North Carolina
Ecosystem/Habitat
Rocky reefs
Feeding Habits
Foraging predator
Conservation Status
Not listed
Taxonomy
Order Decapoda (crayfish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp); Family Nephropidae (clawed lobsters)
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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google+American lobster, unlike most invertebrates, have teeth. However, these teeth aren’t located in their mouths – they are in their stomach. Their stomach chews food using what looks like molars, called a “gastric mill.” Lobster has not always been a sought-after seafood, in fact, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was so cheap that Americans used it as lawn fertilizer and fed it to prisoners and indentured servants. In Massachusetts, some servants fought against this by having it added to their contracts that they would not be fed lobster more than three times a week.
- American Lobster
- American Plaice
- Arctic Char
- Atlantic Cod
- Atlantic Herring
- Atlantic Mackerel
- Atlantic Puffin
- Atlantic Walrus
- Atlantic Wolffish
- Basking shark
- Beluga Whale
- Blue Shark
- Bowhead Whale
- Bubblegum Coral
- Canary Rockfish
- Capelin
- Chinook Salmon
- Dungeness Crab
- Eulachon
- Fin Whale
- Fjords
- Giant Pacific Octopus
- Great White Shark
- Green Sea Turtle
- Greenland Halibut/Turbot
- Greenland Shark
- Humboldt Squid
- Humpback Whale
- Kelp Forests
- Leatherback Sea Turtle
- Lingcod
- Lion's Mane Jellyfish
- Loggerhead Sea Turtle
- Lophelia Coral
- Narwhal
- North Atlantic Right Whale
- Northern Gannet
- Northern Shrimp
- Orca
- Pacific Herring
- Pilot Whale
- Polar Bear
- Pom-Pom Anemones
- Redfish (Acadian & Deepwater)
- Sea Otter
- Sea Pens
- Sea Strawberry
- Seamounts
- Snow crab
- Sockeye Salmon
- Spiny Dogfish
- Thick-billed Murres
- Thorny Skate
- Tufted Puffin
- Yelloweye Rockfish