Lobsters Are Now Ruthless, Cannibal Savages
As an experiment, Noah Oppenheim, a marine biology graduate student at the University of Maine, attached a waterproof, infrared camera to the head of a young lobster. As evening set in, he saw sights that cannot be unseen (but can be seen by you in the video below). Lobsters eating lobsters.
Yes, all across the sandy depths in the Gulf of Maine, these clawed beasts are turning to younger clawed beasts for their supper. Oppenheim's research showed that little lobsters in view of the camera were 90% more likely to be consumed by another lobster than other predators. Did the adorable lobster with a foolish camera sticking out from his exoskeleton get eaten? We don't know, but it was a murky, violent, horror movie down there.
Oppenheim says this is the first time that researchers have seen lobster cannibalism so rampantly in the wild. Lobsters are known for chomping on each other while in captivity (that's why they wear those stylin' rubber bands around their claws as they paw at the glass in grocery store tanks). Basically, they have been around for approximately 139 million years, so they know how the fuck to survive. They will eat their closest friend and only companion.
The Climate Desk has some fascinating facts about what's driving these lobsters to pillaging madness. First, lobsters are making more lobsters. Warmer water allows lobsters to grow even larger and have more future-monster babies, and the last decade on the coast of Maine has been the warmest on record. Also, their predators have been overfished, leaving a greater population of lobsters as fare, rather than their usual favorite snacks of cod, herring, or hearty "groundfish."
Someone get these cannibal crustaceans a little DFW or send PETA down there or something, maybe it will convince these brutes to change their dining habits.
