DO I HAVE ANY LOBSTERS?!?!

I HAVE SO MANY LOBSTERS...

Let me show you... Here, let's have a look at lobsters from 3 different taxonomic groups...

SPINY LOBSTERS (family Palinuridae)

Southern Rock (Spiny) Lobster (Jasus edwardsii), family Palinuridae, found in coastal areas around Australia and New Zealand

photograph by Stemonitis 

Ornate Rock Lobster (Panulirus ornatus), family Palinuridae, Fly Point, Port Stephens, NSW, Australia

photograph by Richard Ling

California Spiny Lobster (Panulirus interruptus), family Palinuridae, off the coast of California, USA

photograph by Brett Seymour | NPS

REEF LOBSTERS (family Enoplometopidae)

Violet-spotted Reef Lobster (Enoplometopus debelius), family Enoplometopidae, found around the Pacific Ocean

photograph by reef-guardian.com

Atlantic Reef Lobster (Enoplometopus antillensis), family Enoplometopidae, found in warmer parts of the Atlantic Ocean

photograph by Fernando Herranz Martín 

Hawaiian Red Reef Lobster (Enoplometopus occidentalis), family Enoplometopidae, Hawaii

This species is normally red, but this individual has just molted.

photograph by Drew R. Smith

TRUE or TYPICAL LOBSTERS (family Nephropidae)

European Lobster (Homarus gammarus), family Nephropidae, found in the eastern Atlantic

photograph by H. Zell 

American Lobster (Homarus americanus), family Nephropidae, found off the Atlantic coast of the NE U.S. and eastern Canada

Heard blue lobsters are rare, and what do you know we find one laying on the grass.

What do you think?

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Hi @jyn-azris, I just saw this submission. Sorry for the late response!

I most definitely find this interesting!

There is indeed some truth to blue lobsters being rare, but from what I have heard, that mostly concerns American lobsters (Homarus americanus). While I do think this lobster is apart of the genus Homarus, I actually think it might be Homarus gammarus, or the European lobster. Though I do not know your location, based off the tail-shape, blue colour and the white spotting on the side, I believe it to be H. gammarus. I would be even more certain of this, if its underside or belly was lightly coloured, a bit beige or light yellow.

As you might guess from its common name, Homarus gammarus is the European relative of the American lobster. It actually has a naturally blue-shaded colouring. However, most of the times European lobsters are much more darkly coloured, like a dark cyan or even blackish shade. If they have a brighter colour, they also tend to have a lot of white spots on them (from what I have seen).

The tail you found is exceptionally brightly coloured and does not have too many white spots, which I do believe to bit a bit rarer, and is an awesome find!

Here are some observations I could find on iNaturalist similar to yours:

AKA Common Lobster, and originally described as Cancer gammarus by Linnaeus, in 1758, before he distinguished lobsters from crabs. Other synonyms include Astacus marinus, Astacus gammarus, Homarus marinus, Astacus europaeus and Homarus vulgaris.

Native to the NE Atlantic and Mediterranean, although populations in the Med, Norway and parts of the Netherlands are genetically distinct from the bulk in the Atlantic.

Highly desired as food, and extensively fished for around Europe, regardless of the destruction that wrecks on the seafloor. Lobsters live, on average, between 31 and 54 years, although one female was found that had reached 72 years. This slow growth and very low survival rate of the larvae is one reason attempts to farm them have not been very successful. Nor was the attempt to deliberately introduce them to New Zealand - between 1904 and 1914, one million larvae were released from hatcheries in Dunedin.

European Lobsters are hosts to one of the three known species of Cycliophoran, tiny symbionts that are so strange that when there were first discovered in 1995 they were put in their own Phylum. That particular species has yet to be properly described.