Red Spiny Lobster

Around 25 meters, the lamp traces along a coralline wall when a pair of striped antennae suddenly emerges from the shadow. The red spiny lobster remains under cover, but it reserves a first surprise: it is not silent.

At the base of its antennae, a friction mechanism can produce sounds called rasps, a succession of scraping sounds. In Palinurus elephas, these sounds have been recorded notably in situations of threat, associated with defensive behaviors against predators.

Even more discreet, a difference allows the sexes to be distinguished: in the female, the fifth pair of legs ends in a small claw, used notably to care for the eggs she carries under her abdomen. But the most astonishing transformation precedes all these scenes.

At hatching, the future spiny lobster has almost nothing of this armored silhouette: it is a transparent and very flattened phyllosome larva, adapted to a long life in the plankton. In the Mediterranean, this larval phase is estimated at approximately five to six months before the final stages preceding settlement on the bottom.

The lamp moves away. In the fissure, the long antennae gradually disappear into the darkness, as if the rock were gently closing its secret.