lobsters are kinky

last night i had a 2.5 lb lobster at City Lobster. all for me. it was very good but not quite as good as the one i had the last time which was bursting with eggs AND I THINK SPERM so i went online to learn more about lobsters so i can pick a better one next time. and i found out that INDEED lobsters get it on and store sperm zomg. "All females store the sperm to fertilize eggs later, not at the time of copulation." Wikipedia actually, i could have been confusing that with tomammi (sp?). I AM NOT KINKY.

i read somewhere that it is illegal to sell female lobsters. but i've had enough female lobsters in the past to doubt this. the one i had last night was probably a male lobster. it had the thickest shell of any lobster i've ever had. i'm taking my brother to have lobster next monday for his birthday and this time i'm going to ask for a female lobster. this is how you tell: 1. they have a thicker tail (esp. at the stem) 2. the little flippers on the underside of their tale, the "spinnerets", are all soft, as opposed to the male lobster, whose first spinneret pair is hard and the rest are soft 3. females have a little rectangular flap? on the underside of their belly between their second pair of legs. (legs are underneath the head section, spinnerets are underneath the tail). that is where they actually store the sperm. 4. lots of times lobstermen will notch the tail of female lobster and return them to the sea to release their eggs. i think they get paid for returning them to the sea or something so the notching is to show that a lobster is accounted for. not sure on that though

so, we'll see if picking a female lobster gives me sweeter meat, more tender meat. i'm wondering whether male lobsters actually have harder shells so they can go around fighting.

lobster mating is hilarious. i don't think the females have to fight and that their shells are more just for protection from predators and the elements. but check this out this is how they seduce each other: "They also have this little interesting feature of their anatomy where they have a big bladder in their head and they piss out the front of their head. So they're constantly pissing in each other's faces. When a female wants to seduce a male, she comes by the door of his apartment and he sits inside and pisses out the door at her. If she likes the smell she comes by and sticks her head inside his apartment and pisses back at him." (from Kinky sex secrets of the lobster then when they decide he likes her enough he lets her come into his apartment. "Then she actually moved in, and it turns out she was ready to shed her shell at that time. So within 15 or 30 minutes of her molting the male approaches and turns her over and they copulate while she's soft. Then after about a week, once her shell has hardened up again, she leaves without a backward glance. So they've pair-bonded for about two weeks. And then? The next female lobster shows up and moves in with the dominant male. And this goes on in sequence. The female lobsters are keeping tabs on each other to figure out who's mating with the dominant male, and they wait until one of their sisters has done her business and then the next moves in. So they all take turns. It's called serial monogamy." (from Pharyngula: Lobstr sex

i think that's more than anyone needs to know about lobsters. oh, one other important point: when lobsters are about to molt, they will gather up a lot of seawater and grow a new shell underneath their old one. that seawater will make up a lot of their weight so it means less flesh. to avoid getting one of those, look at the underside of the tail and see if the flesh pushes against the shell, if it is, it probably is not waterlogged. also, some people say that smaller lobsters are more tender (under 2 pounds). i prefer the 2-4 pound range, and yes i've all that range. apparently the meat begins to get stringy from 4-6 lbs and up, some other people say 5-7 lbs