The Mating Rituals of a Maine Lobster

Despite how many consider Maine Lobsters as something out from an alien sci-fi movie, these amazing creatures actually have some feelings even long and interesting courtship between its opposite sexes.Dr. Jelle Atema from the Boston Marine Biology Laboratory who conducted a study of lobsters claimed that lobsters, including Maine Lobsters, can make sweet lovers.

This as Maine Lobster societies actually developed and evolved a complex system of protects the Female Maine Lobster when she is at her most vulnerably delicate period of her life. According to Dr. Atema’s study, a ready-to-molt female lobster approaches a male lobster’s lair and wafts a ‘sex perfume’ known as “pheromone” secretly mixed with her urine. She then sprays it straight at the male’s pad.

The male senses it and rushes to fan the water with his swimmerets, thus, permeating his bachelor’s pad with her sex perfume. The male then moves to the entrance door with his claws raised in a pompously aggressive manner.

Dr. Atema observed that the female lobster then responds either with a brief fight or turns away. But either playing hard-to-get way seems to work to bring him under her control. It is when the female raises her claws and places them on the male’s head will the male knows she is ready to mate.

Both then enter the male’s lair where they stay until the female lobster finally molts and sheds out her shell exposing her naked vulnerability to the male. The male could either mate with her or just eat her , but interestingly, does the noble thing with her.

Dr. Atema describes how the male lobster tenderly turns the female’s limp and vulnerable body over unto her back. The male lobster, with all his dominance in his hard shell, pointy legs and mouth parts walks over her very carefully making absolutely sure that he does not tear her soft unprotected soft flesh. The male then inserts his first pair of swimmerets, which are rigid and grooved, and passes his sperm into a receptacle in the female’s body.

“They mate with a poignant gentleness that is almost human,” Dr. Atema observed adding that the female lobster then stays in the safety of the male’s den for about a week or until her new shell hardens. By then, the attraction between the two lobsters from the opposite has passed and both agree to part with no regrets even a backward gland for the other who once was its tender lover.