Monster SD Bay Lobster - 11-25-2011

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by grey zone

The swimmerettes on males do not touch or overlap. Unless I'm being deceived by the picture the swimmerettes on that lobster all overlap.

I did some checking going through some of my old pics, and it kind of confirmed what I already thought. The swimmerets on male bugs seem to vary in size quite a bit in ratio to the the size of the tail, and there seems to be a correlation to the size of the bug with larger bugs having proportionally smaller swimmerets.

Though they are not ever as big as those on females in some cases the swimmerets on male bugs overlap in some cases they do not.

If I had to guess there is a point where they quit increasing in size as the male bug molts and grows so they end up looking smaller and smaller in really large bugs.

Maybe what's throwing you is the size of his bug. Looks like he's holding it out quite a bit.

On really huge male bugs the swimmerets are usually much smaller in relation to the size of the tail, so you are sort of right even though you're wrong about the sex

Really huge bugs have changes in features you can recognize no matter how someone holds it.

Here's a good size bug I caught, held up by my friend Hugh.




As you can see on that bug the swimmerettes look tiny, but also look at the ratio of it's carapace length to width, and how thick the legs are. Hugh's a big guy.Those legs on that bug where at places over an inch in diameter.

Once bugs get big around nine pounds they kind of start to fill out, or get "shoulders"

If I had to guess by just looking at it's features I'd say KM's bug is well under 8.5 pounds, maybe even around 5 or 6, where the bug Hugh is holding is well over ten pounds.

At any rate they are both still males.

Here's a crappy image for telling spiny lobster sex..



Not the best picture, but you might want to notice the claws on the females legs. Also as you can see they've drawn swimmerets that though smaller then the females, they can still overlap on the male bug.

I'd say judging Lobster sex by the size of a lobsters swimmerets is lot like trying to determine a persons sex by the length of their legs. Sure women proportionally have longer legs but it's not the legs but what's between them that determines sex.

Jim