To many, it may seem that the lobster’s most natural habitat is on a large, oval plate between a cup of drawn butter and a lemon wedge.

Only a few of the hundreds of types of lobster are caught commercially. But those few species are some of the most heavily harvested creatures in the sea, and generate a multi-billion-dollar industry, with more than 200,000 tons of annual global catch.

The lobster that most people know from their dinner plates is the American lobster (Homarus americanus). The European lobster (Homarus gammarus) is another common commercially caught species. These cold water crustaceans live on their respective sides of the northern Atlantic Ocean. There are also tropical lobsters that are widely consumed, but these are