Molted Lobster

 

On Friday, I finally got around to pulling the lobster traps, and caugt a modest three lobsters out of the five traps that I have dropped.

   

So when I pulled the keeper trap to check on them today, I found three "live" lobsters and one dead carcass.  How the hell did a slightly larger lobster get into the closed keeper trap?   But when I grabbed the newcomer to put elastics on his claws, my grasp  almost penetrated his pliable soft shell, and the elastics would have crushed his claw.   

Then it dawned on me that the dead lobster was not dead at all, but was the discarded shell of a molting.

Pretty cool.... The new softshelled critter in the trap was definitely a size larger than the lobster that I boated a day ago.