The vertical distribution and swimming ability of the three larval stages (Zoea I, II, and III) of Homarus gammarus were determined in laboratory experiments. In an artificial water column, newly hatched larvae were positively phototactic to white light at intensities near 0.6 mmol m 2 s . The positive phototactic behaviour decreased with increasing larval age and stage. Accordingly, older larv...

Spiny lobsters (Panulirus longipes, P. penicillatus and versicolor) are an important resource in Seychelles, where they inhabit coastal carbonate granite reefs that have been impacted by multiple coral bleaching events over the past two decades. Little is known about their biology ecology this region. Interspecific competition for food resources was previously suggested, but no quantitative dat...

The cardiac ganglion of the lobster, which contains five large and four small cells (Alexandrowicz, 1932), produces integrated patterns of burst discharges. Maynard (1955, 1966) described how this ganglion may be compared to a miniature central nervous system, and pointed out that integrative processes occurring within the ganglion are of great interest because analyses of a simple nervous syst...

With the goal of understanding how nervous systems produce activity and respond to the environment, neuroscientists turn to model systems that exhibit the activity of interest and are accessible and amenable to experimental methods. The stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) of the American lobster (Homarus americanus; also know was the Atlantic or Maine lobster) has been established as a model s...