EUROPEAN LOBSTER

The Lobster is the largest and strongest of our native crustaceans. Undisturbed, its life span may reach 15 years, or more. When caught in pots, the usual size is from between 23 and 38 cm (9 - 15 in), weighing between 0.7 and 2.2 kg (1.5 - 5 lb). The legal measurement is the carapace only.  The minimum legal size (in Sussex waters) is 85 mm (3.5 inches, carapace length). The length excludes the claws and telson (tail) so the lobster appears much larger.
 

European Lobster

Lobster fishing is strictly controlled with a licence needed if you capture more than two specimens in one day.

The largest European Lobster, Homarus gammarus  (= H. vulgaris), on record measured 1.26 metres and weighed 9.3 kg (20 lb 8 oz). It was caught during reconstruction work on a jetty off Fowey in Cornwall as long ago as 1931. Its crushing claw weighed 1188 g (2 lb 10 oz) after the meat was removed. Its total length was 1.26 metres.
(Guinness Book of Records 1991)

 The length that the European Lobster will normally grow to if it is not captured is a total length of 50 cm, weighing about 5 kg (11 lb). A lobster of this size may be 20 years old.
 
 

A large Lobster at the Shoreham-by-Sea display 1999. Lobsters of this size, nearly 4 kg (8 lb), need to be supported if lifted from the water.

John Barker captured  an exceptional lobster by hand (or rather, two hands) underneath the Palace Pier at Brighton in 1963 which weighed 3.85 kg (8 lb). It was put on display in the old Brighton Aquarium.
In the last century, in 1875, a 6.4 kg (14 lb) Lobster was caught in a trammel net off south Cornwall.
In 1877, a 5.4 kg (12 lb) Lobster was captured in Saints Bay, Guernsey, Channel Islands.

 American Lobsters have been captured off the Devon coast in the first part of 1996. It is thought that they were discarded from the galleys of cruise ships.

17 March 1995
A North American Lobster, Homarus americanus, was brought up in a pot with a European Lobster 30 miles south of the Isle of Wight by a south Devon boat. It is a berried female and was taken to the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth where it has been put into quarantine until the eggs are hatched and will be put on view to the public in their Aquarium later. The claws are a different shape and reddish on the underside and the rostrum is rather longer than on the European Lobster.
Cornish Marine Life Records (Ray Dennis) 1995

Norwegian Lobsters
The biggest crushing claw of a lobster ever found was calculated to have been from a specimen that weighed about 9.3 kg. This claw was trawled up outside Gilleleje, Denmark in 1974. It was caught in 20 metres of water and the claw was 364 mm long.
 In March 1988, a European Lobster weighing a record 10 kg (22 lb) was caught off the west coast of Norway, near Floroe. I have been unable to find out what happened to this specimen, so there may be some doubt to the authenticity of this record.

At the beginning of  December 1998 a male Lobster weighing 6.12 kg (13½ lb) was caught by David Spiers 4 miles out of Eastbourne, Sussex. The exoskeleton was covered in the limy tubes of the Keelworm, Pomatoceros triqueter.
On 15 December 1998 it was transferred to the Brighton Sea Life Centre.
It is being kept in the large Tope tank with shoals of mackerel and rays, with plenty of rocks to hide under. This huge tank undergoes water replacement at 2%, or more, every day.

Looking into the lobster bays is a real education, with about 50% being right handed (the side of the crushing claw) with the rest left handed. Others seem to have a variety of claws that are not easily identified as crushing or cutting, but between the two. Colours vary from almost black to a very light shade of blue with some being pink.from Bob Alexander  (Weymouth)

TAXONOMY

 Notes:

Reconstruction Work:
Demolition of part of a jetty; found under a caisson, which is a case for keeping out water while the foundations of the jetty were being built.