Scientists have come a long way in learning about how human beings communicate with each other. Obviously, we can talk and use sign language. We can read and write. We can send each other GIFs and emojis to express our emotions toward a meme. One method of communication that scientists have recently begun to dig deeper into, however, is pheromones.
Pheromones are substances that we human beings give off that get received by other human beings. You can think of them as coded chemical messages that travel through the air and communicate something about our biological states. They can tell other people if you’re stressed or relaxed, if you’re sexually aroused, or even if you’re related to another person. Human beings are far from the only animal that communicates chemically, though. This method of communication is seen in species all over the animal world.
Animals are constantly secreting chemical cocktails to communicate important information with their fellow animals. Ant colonies and beehives engage in chemical communication of such complexity that they’re considered by many to be superorganisms. As you can imagine, though, sending chemical messages through space gets a little more complicated in the ocean. Luckily, lobsters have come up with a pretty interesting (and disgusting) workaround for that problem.
Lobster Talk
So, how do lobsters communicate with one another? Peeing on each other. That’s right, lobsters talk to each other by urinating in the direction of other lobsters. While in human culture, it would be considered deeply insulting to urinate on a fellow member of your species, when lobsters pee on each other, they might be saying, “I love you!”
Lobsters have two bladders located on either side of their head. They also have two urine release nozzles located just under their eyes, with which they spray urine at other lobsters to communicate a range of information. The urinary chemicals are then absorbed by the olfactory pathways of other lobsters, which translates into information about the other lobster’s position in the social hierarchy as well as their sexual status.
If you didn’t know, lobsters actually maintain a strict social order, as only the most dominant males in the society will mate. The hierarchy is determined by fighting, and once the hierarchy is established, fighting becomes less frequent and less violent. Essentially, the lobsters will pee on each other to communicate their social status, and the less dominant one will usually just back down.
Female lobsters will also process the urine of male lobsters and use the information for mating decisions. At the risk of sounding crude, female lobsters will select their mate based on whether or not they like the smell of his pee.
Generally, this method of urine-based communication works very well and keeps a strict order in the pod. But, as you might imagine, things can go askew when a certain lobster can’t take a tinkle. Occasionally, a lobster’s urine release nozzles will not function properly, which disrupts that individual’s ability to broadcast necessary information. Conversely, sometimes a lobster will have a problem with their olfactory pathway, which prevents them from receiving information. This can really throw off communication and disrupt order within the pod.
It seems that lobsters communicate mostly by using urine. They have a pretty poor sense of sight and hearing, and contrary to the beliefs of many, they don’t make sound. No, lobsters don’t scream when you boil them, that sound is made by hot air being released from their shell.
Lobsters aren’t the only animals that communicate through pee. Anyone who has a dog knows that they like to pee on each others’ territories to assert their dominance. Cichlid fish are also believed to communicate by releasing urine into the water.
More Lobster Facts
While you might find it pretty disgusting that lobsters spend a good deal of their social lives peeing on each other, you have to admit that it’s pretty incredible that they can communicate such complex information as their social status through these urinary chemical signals. However, that’s far from the only amazing thing about lobsters. Here are some other facts about lobsters that will blow you away:
Lobsters Have a Dominant Hand
We all know that human beings tend to favor one hand or the other, but researchers have recently begun to look into whether other animals exhibit handedness as well. Apparently, bonobos and chimpanzees show population-level handedness, and even mice tend to prefer using one hand over the other.
Lobsters can also be left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous. They use special receptors on their big, meaty claws to locate food around them and to navigate their way through the ocean floor. They also tend to favor one claw or the other for combat.
Lobsters Don’t Get Old
Of course, lobsters don’t live forever, or else our world would be entirely overrun by lobsters. However, unlike humans and most other animals, lobsters don’t exhibit any major decline in health or strength over the course of their lives.
Lobsters can live to over 100 years old, and even after a century of their lives, they still retain the vitality of their youth. They can also regrow their limbs no matter what age they are. Lobsters typically die when they run out of metabolic energy to molt, and they get stuck in a shell that gets worn down. Eventually, their old shells contract bacterial infections, an affliction known as shell disease.
Lobsters Are Sensitive
While lobsters have an extremely poor sense of sight and smell, they’re actually highly receptive to physical touch and temperature. This is due to the hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs that stick out of the gaps of their shells. These hairs alert lobsters to small changes in their environment such as shifting tides and water salinity.
Lobsters can also detect changes in the external temperature as small as one degree. This can cause them to migrate up to 100 miles per year in order to find the proper conditions for breeding. Think about that temperature sensitivity next time you want to boil a lobster alive.
Lobsters Are Cannibals
Lobsters have a highly developed social hierarchy, but that social system is pretty darn ruthless. When food is scarce, lobsters are known to resort to cannibalism, with the larger lobsters eating smaller lobsters.
They also tend to eat more ravenously after they molt their shell so that they can rebuild enough metabolic energy to generate a new shell. In this case, lobsters will often eat their own shell that they’ve just molted. Since their old shell is chock full of calcium, which is an essential mineral that they need to build a new shell, eating their old shell actually speeds up the process of generating a new shell quite a bit.
Female Lobsters Choose When To Get Pregnant
Lobsters can mate only when the female has molted. When this time of her life comes around, she will release pheromones into the water indicating that she is approaching her time of fertility. Males will then fight over the female, and the champion will subsequently take the molting female into his cave and protect her from predators while she molts. Once she has shed her exoskeleton, the male will turn her over and deposit his sperm packets into her sperm receptacles.
The female’s eggs will not be instantly fertilized, though. In fact, she may carry those sperm packets in her body for up to 15 months, waiting for the right conditions to release her eggs and have them fertilized. If the water is too cold, the female will choose to withhold her eggs and search for a warm location. Once the eggs have been fertilized, the female will attach them to the bottom of her tail with a glue-like substance where they will remain until they hatch. Older female lobsters can carry as many as 100,000 eggs at a time.
Love Your Lobsters
Lobsters are weird and they kind of look like aliens, but as human beings, we should still try to find some compassion for our aquatic friends. These creatures show surprising levels of intelligence, are extremely resilient, and play a very important part in their ecosystems.
Lobster meat is delicious, there’s no denying it. Unfortunately, lobsters do feel pain just like you and I (they also lack the ability to go into shock, so they’re feeling all that pain). If you want to boil a lobster, make sure you kill it first.
The most humane way to kill a lobster before boiling it is to stick a sharp chef’s knife through the carapace (a part of the exoskeleton on the lobster’s back) and quickly plunge it down through the lobster’s head, cutting the head in half. This sounds harsh, but it will ensure that the lobster dies quickly instead of suffering, and it’s certainly preferable to being boiled alive.
Great article.