age of lobster
A one-pound lobster (the minimum size that can be eaten legally) is usually 5 to 7 years old, but lobsters raised in 70-degree water have reached two pounds in less than two years. The largest lobster on record weighed about 44 pounds. After that, a lobster will grow about 1 pound for every 3 years. There is no foolproof way to determine a lobster's age. One can only make an educated guess by looking at the lobster's size It takes approximately 7 years for a lobster to reach 1 pound. After that, a lobster will grow about 1 pound for every 3 years. There is no foolproof way to determine a lobster's age. One can only make an educated guess by looking at the lobster's size It takes approximately 7 years for a lobster to reach 1 pound.  The longest American lobsters have a body (excluding claws) 64 cm (25 in) long. According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest crustacean ever recorded was an American lobster caught off Nova Scotia, Canada, weighing 44.4 lb (20.1 kg). The closest relative of H. americanus is the European lobster, Homarus gammarus. Finally, lobsters live in a hierarchy and it's the females who do the courting. But there's one lobster fact that trumps them all: lobsters show no apparent signs of aging. They don't slow down or become weaker or more susceptible to disease. But rather than getting weaker and more vulnerable over the years, they become stronger and more fertile each time they shed their shells. The typical lobster weighs 1 to 2 lb. But in 2009, a Maine fisherman landed a colossus of 20 lb, which was estimated to be 140 years old. And that isn’t even the oldest lobster found so far. According to Guinness World Records, a 44 lb leviathan was caught in 1977, with claws powerful enough to snap a man’s arm. These hard parts, if a trace of them were left after every molt, would help determine a creature’s age—without them, approximating lobsters’ birth years is difficult. Previous research has suggested that the biggest European lobster males in the wild live an average of 31 years, and the females an average of 54 years. A lobster's two claws can come in several different forms (crusher and cutter, two crushers or two cutters). It has four spindly antennae and sensing hairs that allow it to smell amino acid in its prey. And that prey could be a lot of things: lobsters eat up to 100 types of animals and, occasionally, plants. They're even known to munch on one of their vulnerable lobster brethren, though that's more common in captivity (it's also why captive lobsters have rubber bands on their claws). Lobsters grow by molting their hard exoskeleton, and they do so a lot: the average lobster can molt 44 times before it’s a year old. By the time lobsters reach the age of seven, they molt once a year, and after that, once every two to three years, growing larger with each successive shedding of its exoskeleton. The largest lobster on record, caught in Nova Scotia in 1977, weighed 44 pounds, six ounces and measured 3.5 feet in length. But away from the dinner table, lobsters may actually hold the secret to a long, healthy — and possibly even eternal — life. For this crustacean is one of a handful of bizarre animals that appear to defy the normal ageing process. Last year, fishermen caught a 27-pound lobster, roughly the size of a toddler–the largest in Maine’s history. For lobsters, bigger bodies translate into more reproductive success: females can carry more eggs as their body volume increases, and they keep producing them until they die. Molting is a stressful process.
Males in the wild live an average of 31 years, and the females an average of 54 years.