The question is, “Are Maine Lobsters and Canadian Lobsters different species?” This question is asked a lot and the answer is no but there are MANY differences as mentioned below. Maine lobster and Canadian lobster are the same species of lobster, “Homarus Americanus”. Most people will much more prefer the Maine lobster over the Canadian lobster which will be listed why below.
The Homarus Americanus live at a depth of 13-164 feet under water, in some cases you can find them up to 1,500 feet below the surface. These lobsters are very well known for many things, such as tender meat creating that sweet savoring flavor, or their giant claws and hard shells. The American Lobster lives in shallow waters, with many rocks and places to hide from predators, also the water is very cold!
Now for the differences, although these are the same species of lobster, there are many distinct differences that these lobster have. Let's start with the famous Maine lobster. Maine lobsters live in warmer waters, making their shells a little softer and their meat more tender. Because the water is warmer, the shells do not get as tough, so when they are taking out of the water, they can live for approximately 14-48 hours out of water. This is why Lobster Taxi ships all their live lobster overnight so you can enjoy the fresh meat!
What about the Canadian Lobsters? These lobsters live in much colder water, making their meat not as tender and sweet as Maine Lobsters. With their shells being harder, it can allow them to live out of water for 48-72 hours. Because these lobsters can live out of water for a longer period, you can usually find Canadian Lobsters in supermarkets more because of that reason. Many distributors or fishermen do not have easy access to real Maine lobsters like Lobster Taxi does, so they choose to purchase and distribute Canadian Lobster because they can live longer after being caught. In the summer months the water temperature in Canada is changing resulting the Canadian fishermen not going out the catch lobsters. So what do they do? They “tube” the lobsters, this is where the fishermen or distributors store the lobsters to keep them alive. This is very bad and unhealthy. When lobsters are “tubed” they are stored in a tube, they do not grow which means the meat inside the lobster decreases the longer it is tubed. For example, if you were to order a 1.5lb Live Lobster that would regularly give you about a pound of meat from a healthy Maine Lobster from Lobster Taxi, but a 1.5lb Canadian Tubed Lobster will give much less than a 1lb of meat because it has been tubed. And of course it will taste nothing like a delicious Maine Lobster. Finally, Canadian lobsters are shipped with bait which leaves a horrid, unpleasant fishy smell to the lobsters when you cook them and after they are cooked. Maine Lobsters DO NOT ship with bait making them much more pleasant to enjoy.
