Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Caribbean spiny lob­sters live in west­ern At­lantic trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal wa­ters, rang­ing from North Car­olina (in­clud­ing Bermuda) to Rio de Janiero, Brazil, as well as the Gulf of Mex­ico and through­out the Caribbean. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; "Ma­rine lob­sters of the world: An an­no­tated and il­lus­trated cat­a­logue of ma­rine lob­sters known to date", 1991; Williams, 1984)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • native
• atlantic ocean
  • native

Habi­tat

Adult caribbean spiny lob­sters are ben­thic, liv­ing at depths up to 90 m. Lar­vae are pelagic, mov­ing into nearshore habi­tats as they grow. Ju­ve­niles are found in veg­e­ta­tion, par­tic­u­larly in macroal­gae and oc­ca­sion­ally in large sponges. Adults are found off­shore, often in coral reefs, rocks, and eel­grass beds. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Ma­rine lob­sters of the world: An an­no­tated and il­lus­trated cat­a­logue of ma­rine lob­sters known to date", 1991; But­ler, et al., 2005; But­ler, et al., 2011; Williams, 1984)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• benthic
• reef
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• intertidal or littoral

• Range depth

  0 to 90 m

  0.00 to 295.28 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Caribbean spiny lob­sters grow to ap­prox­i­mately 45 cm in length, with an av­er­age of 20 cm. They grow through­out their lives and in­di­vid­u­als close to 60 cm long have (rarely) been found. Av­er­age weight can range from 51-251 gm. At 20 years of age, in­di­vid­u­als may weigh as much as 4.5 kg. These lob­sters have small spikes cov­er­ing the cara­pace. Al­though males and fe­males are typ­i­cally the same length, males tend to have longer cara­paces. Adults have two long an­ten­nae (longer than the cara­pace), an­ten­nules (small an­ten­nae, about two-thirds of the body length), and large eyes at the front of the head. They have pleopods, which aid in swim­ming, and claws (quite dif­fer­ent from the large, pinch­ing claws of At­lantic lob­sters (Homarus amer­i­canus)). Caribbean spiny lob­sters range from red to brown and blue in color. Adult lob­sters have brown, white, or yel­low spots on their tails and or­ange-yel­low and black stripes on their tail fans. Their legs are striped with blue. Ju­ve­niles are pur­ple in color. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; "Pan­ulirus argus (Caribbean spiny lob­ster)", 2012; But­ler, et al., 2005; Per­era, et al., 2007; Williams, 1984)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes shaped differently

• Range mass

  0.51 to 4.5 kg

  1.12 to 9.91 lb

• Range length

  45 (high) cm

  17.72 (high) in

• Average length

  20 cm

  7.87 in

De­vel­op­ment

Eggs are bright or­ange and darken in color as em­bryos de­velop. They usu­ally hatch within 3 weeks of fer­til­iza­tion and, until hatch­ing, ad­here to the fe­male's pleopods. The fe­male keeps her eggs well aer­ated and cleaned by using a pump­ing ac­tion of her pleopods. Flat, leaf-shaped plank­tonic phyl­lo­soma lar­vae hatch and are pro­pelled away from the fe­male by flex­a­tion of her ab­domen. They float on ocean cur­rents, even­tu­ally mov­ing into shal­lower areas with sea­grass. They mi­grate ver­ti­cally through­out the day, into shal­lower wa­ters at night and deeper wa­ters dur­ing day­light hours. Lar­vae un­dergo 11 dis­tinct phyl­lo­soma stages, by which they meta­mor­phose into pueruli, which re­sem­ble adults but are smaller (about 34 mm at meta­mor­pho­sis), col­or­less, and do not feed or pos­sess hard ex­oskele­tons. After ap­prox­i­mately 6 months, they molt and meta­mor­phose into ju­ve­nile lob­sters. Ju­ve­niles are soli­tary and usu­ally ben­thic. Through­out their lives, these lob­sters molt as they get larger. A new shell shows signs of hard­en­ing within 12 days but is not com­pletely hard until about 28 days later. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; McGaw, 2009; Shapiro, 2012; Williams, 1984; Ziegler and For­ward, 2007)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis
• indeterminate growth

Re­pro­duc­tion

Male Caribbean spiny lob­sters mate with many fe­males, while the fe­males only mate with one male dur­ing a sin­gle re­pro­duc­tive episode (if they mate a sec­ond time in a sea­son, how­ever, it is not nec­es­sar­ily with the same male). A male seeks out a fe­male and when he finds her, he uses his front legs to gen­tly coax her out of her shel­ter. The lob­sters then lie belly-to-belly and the male re­leases a sper­matophore onto the fe­male's tail or un­der­side of her belly. She breaks the sper­matophore open when the eggs are ready to be fer­til­ized. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; Frisch, 2008; Williams, 1984; Ziegler and For­ward, 2007)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Caribbean spiny Lob­sters mate from March through June or June through No­vem­ber, de­pend­ing on the pop­u­la­tion's ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion. A fe­male re­leases 500,000 to 2 mil­lion eggs, once or twice each sea­son. When eggs are ready to be fer­til­ized, a fe­male will scratch open the sper­matophore de­posited by the male, re­sult­ing in ex­ter­nal fer­til­iza­tion (some con­sider this a form of de­layed fer­til­iza­tion). A fe­male car­ries fer­til­ized eggs on her pleopods for about a month, until they are ready to hatch; dur­ing this time she is cons­diered gravid or berried. In­creas­ing em­bry­onic pheromone lev­els in­di­cate readi­ness to hatch and trig­ger more vig­or­ous pleopo­dal pump­ing by the fe­male, help­ing the eggs to hatch. It is es­ti­mated that these lob­sters reach ma­tu­rity by two years of age (70-80 mm in length). ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster - Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; McGaw, 2009; Shapiro, 2012; Williams, 1984; Ziegler and For­ward, 2007)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • external
• oviparous
• sperm-storing
• delayed fertilization

• Breeding interval

  Caribbean spiny lobsters mate at least once a year. If they mate a second time, it is typically 1 week after a brood of eggs hatches.

• Breeding season

  Breeding season is March-June or June-November, depending on geography.

• Range number of offspring

  500,00 to 2,000,000

• Average gestation period

  1 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  2 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2 years

After fer­til­iza­tion, fe­male Caribbean spiny lob­sters carry fer­til­ized eggs on their pleopods until hatch­ing, at which time lar­vae are in­de­pen­dent. Males do not ex­hibit any parental in­vest­ment be­yond pro­duc­tion of ga­metes. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster - Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; Frisch, 2008; Williams, 1984; Ziegler and For­ward, 2007)

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

It is es­ti­mated that these lob­sters live 12-20 years in the wild; age is typ­i­cally es­ti­mated by size. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster - Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; Maxwell, et al., 2007; Shapiro, 2012)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  20 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  12 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  20 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  12 years

Be­hav­ior

These lob­sters ex­hibit a pat­tern of mass mi­gra­tion to deeper wa­ters in sin­gle file lines dur­ing day­time hours of au­tumn months. Up to 50 lob­sters may be in any one line and each an­i­mal main­tains con­tact with the next by using their an­ten­nae. This mi­gra­tion may be in order to lo­cate more fa­vor­able tem­per­a­tures or food sources. They are pri­mar­ily noc­tur­nal, hid­ing in rock or coral crevices dur­ing the day. Caribbean spiny lob­sters also molt, shed­ding their ex­oskele­tons and al­low­ing for growth. When the lob­sters have just molted they are ex­tremely vul­ner­a­ble to pre­da­tion, so they stay hid­den in the reef to avoid preda­tors. In Florid­ian pop­u­la­tions, these lob­sters molt twice a year, from March through July and from De­cem­ber through Jan­u­ary; molt­ing pat­terns vary de­pend­ing on lo­cal­ity and other pop­u­la­tions are known to molt as many as four times a year. Motling fre­quency de­clines with age/size. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; Shapiro, 2012; Williams, 1984)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• nocturnal
• motile
• migratory
• sedentary
• solitary

Home Range

There is cur­rently no pub­lished in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the home range and ter­ri­tory size of this species. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; "Ma­rine lob­sters of the world: An an­no­tated and il­lus­trated cat­a­logue of ma­rine lob­sters known to date", 1991)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Caribbean spiny lob­sters use their an­ten­nules to sense water move­ments as well as ol­fac­tory cues; fe­males, for ex­am­ple, de­tect lev­els of pheromones pro­duced by de­vel­op­ing em­bryos to judge time to hatch­ing. They also have large com­pound eyes, which sense light, color, and move­ment. They use their an­ten­nae to cre­ate sounds by rub­bing plates at the bases of their eyes, de­ter­ring preda­tors. These lob­sters can also de­tect mag­netic fields, which they use dur­ing mi­gra­tion. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; Roach, 2004; Williams, 1984; Ziegler and For­ward, 2007)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• pheromones
• vibrations

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• vibrations
• chemical
• magnetic

Food Habits

Caribbean spiny lob­sters are for­agers and feed pri­mar­ily on gas­tropods, bi­valves, and chi­tons. They also eat car­rion and other or­gan­isms like crus­taceans, worms, and sea urchins. They are con­sid­ered om­in­vorous, as there are records of them oc­ca­sion­ally eat­ing veg­e­ta­tion. When feed­ing on an­i­mals with shells, Caribbean spiny lob­sters use their front legs to bring food close to them and then crush it with their mandibles. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; Shapiro, 2012)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore
  • vermivore
  • scavenger
• omnivore
• detritivore

• Animal Foods
• carrion
• mollusks
• aquatic or marine worms
• aquatic crustaceans
• echinoderms
• other marine invertebrates

• Plant Foods
• macroalgae

• Other Foods
• detritus

Pre­da­tion

Many an­i­mals feed on these lob­sters and their lar­vae. Preda­tors of ju­ve­nile and adult lob­sters in­clude sharks, rays, skates, sea tur­tles, moray eels, oc­to­puses, crus­taceans, and fishes. Hu­mans also catch and con­sume these lob­sters. Caribbean spiny lob­sters avoid pre­da­tion by hid­ing in crevices or spaces in reefs. When preda­tors ap­proach these lob­sters, they use their an­ten­nae to de­fend them­selves. They rub a plec­trum, which is a nub like struc­ture found on their an­ten­nae, against plates below their eyes. The re­sult is a screech­ing sound that plays a role in their de­fense against preda­tors, pos­si­bly scar­ing them away. This is known as the "stick and slip" mech­a­nism. Ad­di­tion­ally, they may flip their tails for­ward, thrust­ing them quickly in an­other di­rec­tion, if threat­ened. This be­hav­ior is known as a "tail flip," and is usu­ally only seen in open areas. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; Roach, 2004; Shapiro, 2012; Smith and Her­rkind, 1992)

• Known Predators

  • Nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum)
  • Bonnethead shark (Sphyrna tiburo)
  • Rays (Superorder Batoidea, Class Chondrichthyes)
  • Skates (Family Rajidae, Class Chondrichthyes)
  • Sea turtles (Superfamily Chelonioidea, Order Testudines)
  • Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta)
  • Moray eels (Family Muraenidae, Class Actinopterygii)
  • Octupus (Order Octopoda, Class Cephalopoda)
  • Portunus sp. (Class Malacostraca, Phylum Arthropoda)
  • Bonefish (Albula vulpes)
  • Toadfishes (Order Batrachoidiformes, Class Actinopterygii)
  • Groupers (Order Perciformes, Class Actinopterygii)
  • Gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus)
  • Triggerfishes (Order Tetraodontiformes, Class Actinopterygii)
  • Permit (Trachinotus falcatus)
  • Human (Homo sapiens)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Be­yond their roles as preda­tors and prey, these lob­sters may be in­fected with a path­o­genic virus, PaV1 (Pan­ulirus argus virus 1), the first known nat­u­rally oc­cur­ring virus of a lob­ster, as well as a num­ber of par­a­sites, bac­te­ria, and fungi. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster: Pan­ulirus argus", 2012; Shields, 2011)

• Ecosystem Impact
• keystone species

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

These lob­sters are com­monly har­vested for com­mer­cial pur­poses. They are sec­ond only to shrimp in com­mer­cial im­por­tance to Florida fish­eries; from 1987-2001, com­mer­cial har­vest to­taled 94.6 mil­lion pounds. They are also pop­u­lar with recre­ational fish­er­men. ("Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster (Pan­ulirus argus)", 2011; "Caribbean Spiny Lob­sters, Pan­ulirus argus", 1998; Shapiro, 2012)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse ef­fect of this species on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Caribbean spiny lob­sters are cat­e­go­rized as "Data De­fi­cient" by the IUCN. Re­stric­tions have been placed on fish­ing for these lob­sters, mainly to pre­vent gravid fe­males from being caught and to allow ju­ve­niles to grow. (But­ler, et al., 2011)

• IUCN Red List

  Data Deficient

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Na­dine Seudeal (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Je­remy Wright (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

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2012. "Caribbean Spiny Lob­ster - Pan­ulirus argus" (On-line). Beau­ti­ful Oceans. Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 28, 2012 at http://​www.​beautifuloceans.​com/​creatures/​a-m/​caribbean-spiny-lobster/​241-caribbean-spiny-lobster-panulirus-argus.​html.

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Ziegler, T., R. For­ward. 2007. Con­trol of lar­val re­lease in the Caribbean spiny lob­ster, Pan­ulirus argus: Role of chem­i­cal cues. Ma­rine Bi­ol­ogy, 152/3: 589-597. Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 27, 2012 at http://​libproxy.​umflint.​edu:​2092/​content/?​k=panulirus+argus+facts.