Homarus americanus
American lobster
This specimen is impressive, but it’s certainly not the biggest in a Canadian museum. The Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, New Brunswick may hold the contender for that award!
A lobster’s big claws are each specialized for a task, one for cutting and one for crushing. As it eats, lots of bits and pieces float in the water around the lobster’s head, offering a food source to the barnacles you can see hitchhiking on the surface of the claws. These are crustaceans, too, although they haven’t looked much like them since they settled here as tiny free-swimming larvae and traded their planktonic life for this permanent home next to the grocery store!
