Monster Lobster

The North American lobster is a cantankerous beast - not surprising when one considers the punishing environment it inhabits.

The ability to regenerate its limbs gives this lobster a sci-fi dimension, as does its ability to grow to over 500,000 times its birth size - enduring near fatal moultings as it does so.

Despite their natural advantages in life - which include vice-like claws - these 'monster lobsters' do not have a particularly comfortable existence. Few survive the Gulf of Maine's fierce currents and its many predators. Even fewer grow to marketable weight of almost two pounds. The elite are those who survive for forty years plus and fulfil their size and weight potential of three feet in length and 30 pounds in weight.

Join National Geographic Channel for a lobster's-eye view of life, as the creature eludes the powerfully jawed wolf-fish and the enormous basking shark and does battle with its fellow lobsters over territory.