rustaceans are more closely related to insects than they are to fish in the grand scheme of things. They're part of the phylum Arthropodia - the same as spiders, scorpions and cockroaches. Their main diet is garbage - dead fish and other rotting things they find on the sea bed. They also eat each other, if they can. If lobsters were as big as your fingernail and lived in your baseboards, you're first thought on seeing one would be to step on it, not eat it!

They have a jointed external shell to protect and support their body parts. The body is divided into two parts: a cephalothorax (or head/chest) and a six-jointed abdomen (which is commonly called the "tail".) The first of the animal's five pairs of legs are huge, sporting claws dubbed "crusher" and "pincher" according to their functions. The other legs are used for walking. The animal can also swim by flexing its tail. In this mode, a full-grown lobster can move as far as 5 metres in one second!

Freshly-hatched lobsters are the size of a small pea, drift helpless near the surface and are considered delicious by predators like codfish. About one in a thousand survive their first month, in which they moult four times, growing to the size of your thumbnail. Over the next year an adolescent lobster moults eight more times, growing to the size of your hand.

Moulting is part of a lobster's life. As it grows, the flesh within its shell becomes denser while a new, soft shell forms inside the old one. When it is time to moult, the lobster arches its body into a "v" shape and shrugs out of its old shell. Then the animal sucks in water and puffs up to 10 or 15% larger than its previous body size, giving itself ample room to grow. At this stage the shell is very soft and even adult lobsters are vulnerable to predators.