OK, lobsters are a special dish for a candlelit table.
But along the northeastern coast of the US, the lobster was once so common in the 17th and 18th centuries that it was seen as junk food. A daily lobster dinner for servants and prisoners was considered a cruel and unusual punishment!
Biologically speaking, the lobster is a large marine Crustacean (Latin for shell) of the order Decapoda (Latin for ten feet: lobsters have that number of legs). Lobsters are grouped with freshwater crayfish in the suborder Reptantia, which is Latin for creeping. Amazingly, both lobsters and crayfish can also swim, using their fanlike tails. Lobsters have movable eyes on stalks and long antennae, and are mainly nocturnal. The chemosensory organs on the stalks are the functional nose of a lobster. The animals scavenge and eat dead or dying fish.
True lobsters are in the family called Homarus. They are distinguished by their very large claws, or pincers, on their first pair of legs. They have similar but smaller ones on their second and third pairs.
Spiny lobsters belong to the family of Palinuridae, which do not have large pincers. They communicate by means of a serrated pad at the base of their antenna. The 'sound' is picked up by sensory nerves located on hair-like outgrowths, up to distances of 60 meters away.
Most common species include the common lobster Homarus gammarus, found off Britain, coloured bluish-black. The American lobster Homarus americanus is closely related. A whole other lobster is the spiny Palinarus vulgaris is also found in European waters. The Norwegians have their own small orange Nephrops norvegicus.