Caribbean Spiny Lobster

• Its life cycle runs through six phases across three different habitats, from the open ocean to the reef.
• It communicates by rasping a spine on its antennae against plates beneath its eyes to produce a creaking sound.
• It can lay up to 2,000,000 eggs in a single clutch.
• comportamientoIt can migrate in long queues of dozens of animals nose to tail, navigating partly by sensing magnetic fields.
• sentidosIt can detect subtle changes in the Earth's magnetic field, an ability it uses alongside chemical cues to navigate during its mass single-file migrations.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - calcified exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat and environment

Coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the subtropical western Atlantic

Birth weight

A transparent, flattened phyllosoma larva at hatching, weighing less than 1 gram

Size at birth

A phyllosoma larva with a long pelagic life, moulting up to 11 times over 6-12 months

Sexual maturity

2 years (70-80 mm of carapace length)

Gestation / incubation

About 1 month beneath the female's abdomen after external fertilisation

Litter / clutch size

500,000 to 2,000,000 eggs per clutch, once or twice a season

Sources consulted: SeaLifeBase · Animal Diversity Web · Fish Consulting Group · CRFM Regional Overview · Florida State University (life history synopsis) · PMC (egg predator reproductive performance study)