It's astonishing what you run across while researching a book on lobsters, from the scientific to the simply bizarre. When alive, the American lobster has a variable coloring that is usually brownish with green and orange patches, though on this specimen the orange is especially pronounced. Photo: NOAA Photo Library. The European lobster, by contrast, generally has a dark blue coloring. Photo: UKDivers.net. American and European lobsters both turn bright red when boiled; exactly why is explained in the book. Even after boiling, this specimen apparently got upset at the prospect of being eaten -- an innocent summer luncheon in Maine gone horribly awry! Photo: Sarah Corson. While I was researching THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS on Little Cranberry Island, Bruce Fernald's brother Dan, also a character in the book, caught this brilliant blue lobster, the coloring caused by a rare genetic mutation. Photo: Sarah Corson. One of the scientists depicted in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, Diane Cowan, has dressed a number of female lobsters up with sonar transmitters, like this specimen. As described in the book, I went out with Diane in her boat to "listen" for the lobsters using sonar tracking equipment. The local fishermen call these specimens "Scuba lobsters" when they show up in traps. Photo: courtesy of The Lobster Conservancy. In THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, you'll learn about a little-known Pentagon initiative to build robotic lobster minesweepers to be used by the U.S. Marines in beachhead assaults. Here's a picture of what these sinister robolobsters may look like. Photo: MASSA Products Corporation. Another of the scientists depicted in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, Richard Wahle, attached leashes to tiny baby lobsters for an experiment that you can read about in the book. Here one of the miniscule lobsters dangles on its tethers. Photo: courtesy Richard Wahle. When this image arrived in an e-mail from my agent's office I was stunned. Even after spending a year researching lobsters I hadn't realized they were literate. I'm now very nervous about the prospect of them reading my book. Source: Powells Books. An inventive balloon-twister in Tokyo named Reiko Kikuchi of Aerotech Co. created this gigantic red lobster out of balloons. Photo: courtesy of Link-O-Loons. The Surrealist artist Salvador Dali's "Lobster Telephone" remains timeless, even though anyone who has read THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS will know that in fact, lobsters communicate using urine. Photo: © Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The man who makes me jealous: Lobsterman (a.k.a. Jeff Costa), the wrestler and 2004 presidential candidate. Here Jeff is featured in his stunning "lobster Elvis" outfit. I'd like to wear one of these myself, but I'm not sure I'd have the claws to pull it off. Photo: courtesy Jeff Costa. Atlantic City's self-proclaimed "Lobster King," Harry Hackney, and his Lobster Waitresses. If you've read about lobster mating habits in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, you'll realize right away that Harry must be a dominant male. Postcard: E.C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee, Wis. Now that we've seen a handsome clawed Lobsterman and beautiful clawed Lobster Waitresses, here's a sobering thought: a boy actually born with a genetic deformity that gives him lobster-like claws. That's the story in this disturbing book, which describes the sensational murder of a deformed circus sideshow performer. Source: Amazon.com. While we're on the subject of humans having lobster-like attributes, this bizarre department-store advertisement was all the rage in Tokyo this spring. Intended to usher in the season's new styles, the ad depicts a human doll shouting "Dappi!" while standing over her cast-off old covering. In Japanese "dappi" means "to shed" -- as in to shed one's shell. Okay, this doesn't technically have anything to do with lobsters. It's just that if people grew the way lobsters do, this is what it would look like. Photo: Trevor Corson. Your guess is as good as mine. All I can say is that there's a computer-graphics programmer out there with way too much free time. But you have to admit, it brings out the inner lobster in all of us. Source unknown. Pat Nixon being attacked by a Maine lobster. Perhaps exposure to a barrelful of writhing lobsters should have been the punishment for Watergate. Source: DownEast magazine. Okay, this doesn't have anything do with lobsters at all, it's just a wonderful sea-life sighting: a whale farting. Source unknown.