Review and images by Suspsy; edited by bmathison1972
Homarus americanus, better known as the American, Canadian, Atlantic, Maine, or northern lobster, is both the heaviest crustacean and the heaviest of all extant arthropods. Old individuals regularly average around 20 lbs and the record holder, caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977, weighed a staggering 44 lbs, which is heavier than my four year old son! The lobster is also famous for being one of the world’s most popular seafood dishes, but personally, I can hardly stand just the aroma. When we went on a big family vacation to Prince Edward Island back in 2019, my wife, my in-laws, and most of the other relatives had lobster for dinner multiple times, but I always ordered the chicken instead. My son also refused to try any seafood, period. Apparently, he inherited his father’s pickiness. 😛
And speaking of my son, we recently took him to the Montreal Biodome on his birthday and made the always risky decision of checking out the gift shop after we had toured the exhibits. Lo and behold, he came upon the big lobster figure from the Safari Ltd. Incredible Creatures line and fell in love with it. Initially I was loathe to buy him another toy (he’d already received a bunch), but he pleaded and begged and cried as only a four year old can. So I bought it for him and all was well in his world. And really, he could have chosen something far worse than a good quality crustacean figure.
This lobster is a pretty big beast that measures just over 23 cm long from the tips of its claws to the end of its uropods (the outer tail fins) and 17.5 cm wide at the tips of its legs. It is sculpted in a rather neutral pose with its great chelipeds (claw-bearing legs) bent as though at rest, its antennas folded back, its walking legs outstretched, and its abdomen (tail) outstretched. You can see from the images that the legs on the right side of this lobster are warped, but my son doesn’t appear to care one bit.
The main colour of this lobster is dark red with plenty of black spots on the claws, carapace, and abdomen and black wash on the legs. This gradually fades to a lighter shade of red on the sides and the tail fins. The mouthparts and antennae are bright red, the eyes are black, and the jagged ”teeth” on the claws are off white. Flipping the lobster over reveals an underside that is light orange and yellow, along with medium orange for the swimmerets. All in all, it’s an accurate colour scheme, although I personally would have liked it better in dark green or brown. There’s also the rare and famous blue (about 1 in 2 million), the even rarer yellow (1 in 30 million), and the ultra rare white (1 in 100 million!).
Most of the lobster’s body is smooth, as you would rightly expect, but the many sections comprising its body are well delineated. The antennae and antennules have a fine ribbed texture, as do the edges of the uropods. There are also short spikes on the tip of the head and on the merus and carpus (arm parts). And the claws, as I mentioned earlier, are jagged, though smooth enough to ensure complete safety with children. The left claw, which is massive and rounded, is the crusher, and as the name suggests, is used by the lobster to crush the shells of mussels, clams, urchins, starfish, and crabs. The thinner right claw is the pincher, which functions like a pair of scissors, slicing and dicing the flesh of those aforementioned prey items. Lobsters in turn are food for codfish, haddock, seals, and of course, humans (but not this one!).
Flipping the lobster on its back reveals further impressive detail, including an accurate-looking set of maxillipeds (mouthparts) and four sets of swimmerets, also known as pleopods. This figure appears to be missing its first set of swimmerets, which on a real lobster would be directly behind the fourth set of walking legs. On a female, this first set of swimmerets would be crossed at the tips, while a male’s would be pointing up toward his body. But judging from the width of this individual’s tail, I believe that it is a male, as females have wider tails to accommodate their egg clutch, or roe.
Overall, the Safari Ltd. Incredible Creatures lobster is impressively sculpted, durable, and fun toy that is sure to please fans of all ages. I suppose now I should start looking into acquiring a crab figure to accompany it!
