PZ Myers. 2004 Sep 19. Lobster sex. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/lobster_sex/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 29.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, September 19, 2004

Lobster sex

Salon has an entertaining article on Kinky sex secrets of the lobster.

Normally lobsters hate each other. If you put a male and female lobster in a tank with each other they start fighting right away and try to kill each other. In nature they have a pretty complicated set of procedures for interacting with each other that are designed to actually avoid real injury, so that a smaller lobster can immediately tell that a bigger lobster is dominant and get out of the way. But if the lobsters are evenly matched in a tank they just continue fighting and the whole thing escalates.

So one of the scientists I write about, Jella Atema, thought the female lobster might be emitting a pheromone to attract the male but it turns out to be exactly the opposite. They did these experiments where they set up a social situation in a 20-foot tank. The males would fight with each other to figure out who the dominant male was, and once he was proven dominant he would go around and beat up all the other lobsters every night. All the lobsters in the neighborhood would be dealt a daily dose of humiliation, both males and females. He'd kick them around and then go back and hang around his shelter, which was the best shelter in the tank, of course.

What happened then is that the females started to take up residence nearby and they would come by his shelter. Then one of them began an elaborate social ritual where she'd come calling to the door every day and eventually he would let her inside the shelter. 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.

1. Arrr! It be half past midnight here already, to be sure, but the sun be still below above the yardarm in Minnesota, so I shall continue in the mode of the day.
   
   Paul, this is just more proof, if more were needed, that ye be the coolest biology teacher on the seven seas, ye scurvy dog. I shall treasure the memory of Pirate Pharyngula as I do that of Evil Pharyngula.
   
   Can't claim to have done anything computerish to celebrate the day, but I did introduce our dinner guests -- an Hispano-German family -- to the concept. And do you know what, the offical TLAPD website has a page of German-language piratisms! They even mention famed pirate hero Claus Störtebeker. When the Hanse finally caught him, he (like the good captain he was) said, I know I'm for the chop, ye lubbers, but spare me men. They had him run the gantlet, and promised him that, for each man he got past without falling, they'd free one of his crew. He'd won pardons for 11 of his mates when the hangman, a pox upon that illegitimate son of a Lübeck deck-monkey, intervened to trip him up. So of course we then listened to the rousing if unsophisticated version of the old Störtebeker song by Slime, German 1980s hardcore punkers. For those who can't resist the urge to go out and get it, I belive it is on the Amis raus [i.e., 'Yankee go home'] LP.
   
   And now one last 'Arrrr!', and off to bed, eh, I mean, to me hammock.
   #: Posted by Mrs Tilton  on  09/19  at  04:49 PM