Are insects Crustaceans? Are Lobsters just Roaches of the sea?

This week we are literally diving into the topic of crustaceans and how they're related to insects, but that's not all. Let's also take a closer look at lobsters and learn some interesting history. 

 

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Music from Lofi Girl with featured artists: HM Surf, and Purrple Cat

 

Transcript: 

 

Welcome to episode 63 of Insects for fun! Only today we’re not talking about insects exclusively. This is a bridge episode which is going to link us into all further episodes relating to crustaceans because there’s a lot and I don’t want to have to keep explaining their relationship every time. SO! Here we go (underwater bubbles) 

 

Remember that episode I did talking about how not all insects are bugs but all bugs are insects? Well here’s a new one for ya. All insects are actually crustaceans, but not all crustaceans aren’t insects (HUH) and no, spiders, scorpions, millipedes, centipedes, and horseshoe crabs are not crustaceans which means that yes, lobsters, shrimp and crabs are more closely related to insects than arachnids, and those other creepy crawly arthropods. Let’s go back in time to where it all began which would be the Cambrian period. At this time the earth did have land masses but Pangea was not a thing, and these land masses were very very bare. Almost all life was still in the ocean and it was here that Crustaceans first came into existence.

So what do Crustaceans and Insects have in common then? Well, for starters they both rely on an exoskeleton made of chitin, and they both start out as an egg and go through a series of molts to reach their adult stage. They also both have compound eyes and antennae! Yeah that’s right, even crabs have antennae, and crazier still is that crustaceans actually have two pairs of antennae unlike insects which only have one. But the similarities go deeper than this, and by that I’m referring to their insides. Both of them share the same proteins for transporting oxygen, and they’re circulatory systems are also controlled by the same peptides. I think it’s safe to say that yes. Insects are indeed crustaceans, and when we eat shrimp, crab and lobster, we’re basically just eating big ocean bugs. 

 

But are Lobsters really just roaches of the sea? How did that myth even start in the first place? Believe it or not there was a time when Lobsters were actually referred to as the poor man’s chicken or even cockroaches of the sea in the United States. Back in the 1600 and 1700s the full potential of a lobster's taste had yet to be unlocked and people really didn’t know how delicious they could be. As a result piles and piles of lobsters would wash up on the shores and people didn’t know what to do with them because they certainly weren’t going to eat them. But the reason lobsters began to really pique people’s interest started with the transportation system. As more and more railroads were being built, and more and more passengers were riding trains for longer periods of time; food had to be made available and what better than to offer cheap and common Lobster! More and more people began eating lobster and became curious about the methods one could cook it, and now here we are. Lobster is considered a delicacy and fetches a high price. 

 

So now that we have the knowledge of what a crustacean is, and the history of lobsters in the states. Let’s look at what exactly a Lobster is, and come to a conclusion as to whether they’re indeed overpriced cockroaches or not. 

 

Not all lobsters are the same, and many crustaceans which have lobster in the name are not true lobsters. Today we are looking specifically at clawed lobsters in the family Nephropidae of which there are around 54! Not too many which is kind of surprising, and I think there must be more as well considering they all say we know more about our solar system than we do about the oceans on earth. These clawed lobsters have 10 legs but only 8 are used for walking. The front three pairs all have claws, so yeah the big claws we crack open and eat are just one pair of 3 legs! 

 

Now here’s where it starts to get quite familiar… the body of a lobster contains three segments. The head, thorax, and abdomen, but with most crustaceans, the head and thorax are fused into something called a cephalothorax! Lobsters also contain large compound eyes, and get this, three pairs of antennae… yeah! The two really long ones we see are used for feeling the ground and the others are for picking up chemicals scents in the water. Some of you might be wondering what the smaller leg things are under the tail of a lobster, and those are called pleopods or swimmerets and they help with swimming!

In general clawed lobsters are on the larger side between 25 - 50cm or 10 and 20inches, I mean I’m sure many of us have seen one form of them before, but it does vary depending on where the species lives. For example deep sea lobsters will naturally be smaller in comparison to a big ol red maine lobster for example. The lobster in Japan are also on the smaller side, but I find that most things other than insects tend to be smaller over here.

 

And speaking of where they live… these lobsters can be found in all the oceans on sandy floors, rocky bottoms, muddy floors, as close as the shoreline to out past the continental shelf into the deep with larger lobsters being further out. Lobsters usually get around by walking along the floor but they can be pretty speedy when they need to! A lobster's escape involves flicking the tail and pushing itself backwards with a max speed recorded at 11mph. They don’t just use their legs for walking though. They actually taste with the front walking legs. They also chew with their stomach, not their mouth. They’ve got something called a gastric mill which is basically a food compactor in their stomach that grinds down everything. Now of course a lobster can’t just swallow things whole the way birds often do, and that’s where the large claws come in. These guys usually break open and rip apart their meal to get it into smaller bite size chunks before getting further crushed in the stomach. The claws can use up to 100 pounds of pressure and are the go to cracking open and eating crabs, clams, mussels and sometimes… even other lobsters. 

 

Now let’s take a look at the longevity of a lobster because rumors are that these creatures are insanely resilient, just like a roach, and it is also rumored that lobsters are biologically immortal! Let’s take a look at the facts. Humans and other animals are designed to degrade because as our cells divide and continue to be born again, a small piece of them doesn’t come back until eventually the cells just simply stop dividing. This small tip at the end of our cell's coding is called a telomere. If we’re to think of this in fishing terms it would be like never being able to replace the line on your rod, and you don’t have a swivel, so you need to cut your line a tiny bit every time you change lures and that line is only getting shorter until you simply can’t fish anymore. Now lobsters on the other hand do have a swivel which means they can keep swapping out lures without having to take any line away and this swivel is an enzyme called telemorase. So yeah. Lobsters are in fact biologically immortal. They actually get more fertile with age, so then why do lobsters die? Unfortunately Lobsters have to keep shedding their skin as they age and grow, and to do this they require more energy and calories, so instead of dying from old age, lobsters actually die from exhaustion. At a certain point they simply cannot get enough calories to replace their shells and that’s the end of it. So in our earlier example the  fishing rod of a lobster gets more and more thick until eventually you can’t even lift it anymore to go fishing. They can also regenerate limbs, but it’s going to take some time. For example a one pound lobster will need about 5 years to regrow one of its larger claws. And yes lobsters feel pain! I don’t care what chefs say or anyone in the food industry. They have sensitive hairs all over their body and an incredibly complex nervous system. There is so much misleading information made publicly available by people who really don’t have a clue. For example I read on a Maine Lobster Company website that insects and lobsters don’t have brains so they don’t feel pain. (dumb dumb dumb dumb) 

 

Earlier we got into the history of lobsters as a food source, but did you know that lobsters actually get grades? There are three grades given to a lobster upon its catch and those are either new shell, hard shell or old shell and the price for each one increases with hardness. The reason is that harder lobsters can be shipped further away, but the meat is coarser. New shell lobsters are incredibly fragile and cannot be transported far. The meat is tender and more sweet when compared with harder shelled lobsters. Here’s a fun fact, lobster shells can be used to make golf balls! They look the same, but only have 70% of the power. 

 

Okay it’s time for conclusions on whether lobsters are actually roaches of the sea (drum roll) It’s a no! They share similarities for sure, but they are not close enough on the family tree or even through appearance to be considered. There are definitely sea roaches though but that’s for another episode… 

 

That wraps up today’s topic! If you enjoyed the episode or enjoy the podcast make sure to give a rating and review if you can so more people can find the show! If you want bonus episodes on topics relating to insect news and other noteworthy discoveries you can find those along with vlogs at Patreon.com/insects for fun. If you have a listener submission you can send to me via IG at insect(number 4)fun or through a fb message OR send me an email at insectsfordummies@gmail.com. 

 

Thanks again for listening and you’ll hear from me next week.