BELIZE SPINY LOBSTERS

Hi, Trent here.  This is a Belize Spiny Female Lobster carrying eggs.  We call this lobster a "berried" lobster, because the eggs look like thousands of tiny berries.  You can clearly see the eggs in orange, here in the picture to the left.

The female carriers her eggs one to four weeks until they hatch.  She protects them from being eaten by fish and she fans them with water.  Lobster eggs need their mother in order to survive.  If the eggs are removed from the mother's tail, they will die.  The number of eggs produced is related to the mother's size and age.  The larger the female, the more eggs she will produce.  In other words, a female with a caraspace (midsection, measured from between its eyes to the beginning of the tail) length of 13 cm (5 inches) may produce three times more eggs than one with a 9 cm (3.5 inches) caraspace.   We are going to throw this lobster back in the ocean, but I wanted everyone to see this before I toss her back.

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