Homarus gammarus

Homarus gammarus, known as the European lobster or common lobster, is a species of clawed lobster from the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and parts of the Black Sea. It is closely related to the American lobster, H. americanus. It may grow to a length of 60 cm (24 in) and a mass of 6 kilograms (13 lb), and bears a conspicuous pair of claws. In life, the lobsters are blue, only becoming "lobster red" on cooking. Mating occurs in the summer, producing eggs which are carried by the females for up to a year before hatching into planktonic larvae. Homarus gammarus is a source of highly esteemed foodstuff, and is widely caught using lobster pots, mostly around the British Isles.

Homarus gammarus

Bart Braun · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
HomarusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Nephropoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At most 4.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 7.246 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesMiocene12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–10.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10.0–9.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.8–9.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.6–9.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.4–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–9.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.1–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.7–8.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.5–8.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.4–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–8.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.0–7.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.8–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.5–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–7.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12.1 Mya6.7 Mya

2 occurrences of Homarus gammarus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Gram — 55.28°N, 9.00°EGram — 55.31°N, 9.06°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Homarus gammarus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Homarus gammarus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Homarus gammarus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

6 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Homarus gammarus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Homarus gammarus

Credit
Bart Braun
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itHomarus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)