Spiny lobsters don’t strum or sing, they play the washboards Carrie Straight 05.18.01 Spiny lobsters (Family Palinuridae) don’t have voices like people, but they make sounds closely related to the sounds that crickets make. These lobsters produce sound by rubbing their antenna against a spot below their eyes. The difference is that the crickets rub two hard parts together to create their sounds and the lobsters rub a soft part of their antenna (plectrum) against the hard “shingles” below their eyes to make theirs. Sheila Patek wanted to find out exactly how the spiny lobsters created their sounds. Using a motion detector and a recording device, she recorded Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) making sounds. When viewing the high-speed video, she saw that the lobsters made two movements when making their sounds. The first movement was the “stick” when the plectrum hit the shingles and sticks. The second movement was the “slip”, which is when the plectrum slips over the shingles. . The lobsters use this sound, produced by friction between the two parts, to scare away predators. Normally lobsters have a hard exoskeleton (outer protective shell), but when they molt (shed their hard exoskeleton and grow into a new one) their exoskeleton is soft for a short time. They would still want to be able to make sounds to scare away predators, and this friction noise-making lets them make sound even when they are soft. Patek, Sheila N. 2001. Spiny lobsters stick and slip to make sound. Nature 411: 153-154. ©2001 The Aurora Collection, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Site Development by: Interactive Multimedia. Inc.