May 27, 2020 By Liz Kimbrough Mongabay
European spiny lobsters create quite the rumble. By rubbing an antenna across its face, a spiny lobster can create a sound that might, under the right underwater conditions, be detectable up to 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) away. The sound, known as an antennal rasp, occurs when an extension of a lobster’s antennae moves across a rough patch under its eye. Lobsters likely make this sound for communication or to scare away predators. In a recently published study in Scientific Reports, researchers asked, how far does the sound of a rasp travel? And can these sounds be used in a non-invasive way to monitor lobster populations?