Lobsters – Taste

Music; Ambience: Ocean sound

JM: Nothing quite like the mouth-watering taste of a lobster, is there? Well, it turns out that lobsters taste their food, not just with their mouths, but with their feet! I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Jelle Atema, a Boston University marine biologist, has been studying lobster senses: the way they orient themselves using touch, smell, and taste.

JA: “So, all their little feet have hairs on them, at the tips. And each one of those hairs is both a tactile and a taste receptor. And they can make very nice taste discriminations between all sorts of different mixtures of food.
They crack a shell and use their little feet to pluck the meat out of the bivalve. And then you have two mandibles that can be used to cut the meat up in smaller pieces. Mandibles would be literally like our teeth.
And then it goes inside the mouth, and believe it or not they can again taste what’s in the mouth before it goes all the way down to the stomach. And you can get these really conflicted lobsters. A lobster that has just fed and you give him a piece of this really strong smelling, old, quite rotten fish, they will go for it and their little feet with all the taste sensors, will pick it up and hand it over to the mouth. Then they have other taste sensors in their mouth, and those are saying “oh no! This is awful!” And they throw it away. But then the little feet pick it up again and they say,”no, no, no! It’s good, I told you! Here!” And they give it back to the mouth. The mouth then manipulates it again and says,”ew! Awful!” And they throw it away. And this can go on, several times back and forth and usually ends up not eating it.”

JM: And you thought you had eating issues! Well, when they’re not feeling so conflicted, lobsters rely upon the chemical signals they receive through taste and smell to do all sorts of things- including finding a mate. We’ll hear more in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

Lobsters - Taste

Meet the gourmands of the sea.

Air Date:01/13/2006

Scientist:

Transcript:

Lobsters - Taste

Music; Ambience: Ocean sound

JM: Nothing quite like the mouth-watering taste of a lobster, is there? Well, it turns out that lobsters taste their food, not just with their mouths, but with their feet! I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Jelle Atema, a Boston University marine biologist, has been studying lobster senses: the way they orient themselves using touch, smell, and taste.

JA: "So, all their little feet have hairs on them, at the tips. And each one of those hairs is both a tactile and a taste receptor. And they can make very nice taste discriminations between all sorts of different mixtures of food.
They crack a shell and use their little feet to pluck the meat out of the bivalve. And then you have two mandibles that can be used to cut the meat up in smaller pieces. Mandibles would be literally like our teeth.
And then it goes inside the mouth, and believe it or not they can again taste what's in the mouth before it goes all the way down to the stomach. And you can get these really conflicted lobsters. A lobster that has just fed and you give him a piece of this really strong smelling, old, quite rotten fish, they will go for it and their little feet with all the taste sensors, will pick it up and hand it over to the mouth. Then they have other taste sensors in their mouth, and those are saying "oh no! This is awful!" And they throw it away. But then the little feet pick it up again and they say,"no, no, no! It's good, I told you! Here!" And they give it back to the mouth. The mouth then manipulates it again and says,"ew! Awful!" And they throw it away. And this can go on, several times back and forth and usually ends up not eating it."

JM: And you thought you had eating issues! Well, when they're not feeling so conflicted, lobsters rely upon the chemical signals they receive through taste and smell to do all sorts of things- including finding a mate. We'll hear more in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.