Bio of lobsters

What is the classification of a lobster?

Lobsters are classified in the phyllum Arthropoda which also includes shrimp, crabs, barnacles, and insects. As invertebrate crustaceans, lobsters also have a hard outer shell or exoskeleton, and no inner skeleton or bones.

What are the body parts of a lobster?

• Abdomen -- the section commonly referred to as the "tail".
• Antennae -- tactile organs, having a sense of touch.
• Antennules -- chemosensors, having a sense of smell - with a function similar to a human nose.
• Carapace -- the outer shell of the cephalothrax
• Cephalothorax -- contains the head and thorax sections -- together they are commonly called the "body"
• Chelipod (crusher claw) -- the larger of the claws, with a rounded surface suitable for crushing prey such as shellfish.
• Chelipod (ripper or pincher claw) -- the smaller of the claws, which is more pointed and sharp, is used for tearing food apart. 
• Eye -- compound eyes provide sense of sight 
• Mandible -- jawlike structure for crushing and ingesting food
• Maxillipeds -- the mouthparts of the lobster, flat platelike parts used to pass food to the mandible
• Pereiopods (walking legs) -- The two sets of walking legs immediately behind the claws are also used for catching and eating food and have many "taste" sensors; the last two sets of legs are used primarily for walking.
• Pleopods -- commonly known as "swimmerets". with tiny hairs. In females the hairs are somewhat longer and are the attachment point for eggs.
• Telson -- the central tail fin
• Uropods -- the outer pairs of tail fins

How does the lobsters nervous system work?

Lobsters have similar nervous systems to an insect. They both don't have brains. They have about 100,000 neurons.

How do lobsters reproduce?

The ovaries of the female lobster are located in the cephalothorax, extend through the abdomen, and are similar to the form of an "H"

The testes (B) of the male lobster are variable in shape and may be either longitudinally paired or H-shaped. Similar to the female oviducts, in the male, paired ducts, called the vas deferentia, emerge just below the heart and run downward toward the of the fifth walking legs. Along this course, they become thicker and glandular, and then they become narrow and thin-walled to form the duct. The thick, glandular portion of the vas deferentia secrete a gelatinous matrix over the sperm to form dense packets of sperm called spermatophores.

During mating, the male transfers a spermatophore to the female. Males of the spiny and slipper lobsters plaster the spermatophore to the outside of the hard-shelled female's abdomen, where it darkens and becomes known as the "tar". Clawed lobsters copulate shortly after the female sheds her old exoskeleton. The male turns the soft female over, cradles her body to hold her up off the bottom while he mounts her and inserts his modified first pair of pleopods (known as the gonopods) into the seminal receptacle of the female.

http://www.lobsters.org/tlcbio/biology5.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/content/articles/2008/03/20/nature_lobsterhatchery_feature.shtml

http://www.lobster.um.maine.edu/index.php?page=47