Lobster
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Common lobsters are very familiar animals, with big front pincers and a long body that ends with a wide tail fan. Their pincers are different sizes, with one used for crushing and one for tearing. Lobsters are crustaceans and are related to crabs and even barnacles!
Common lobsters live in crevices and excavated hidey-holes amongst rocks beneath the low tide mark and out to depths of 60m. They hide during the day and come out to feed at night. Lobsters are scavengers, searching out food on the seabed, and will eat molluscs, sea urchins and other smaller crustaceans. If you spot a lobster with thousands of tiny jelly balls on their legs, don't worry they're her eggs! Female lobsters carry their fertilised eggs around for up to 12 months to protect them from predators before they hatch. We say a female with eggs is "berried".
Lobsters grow by shedding their hard exoskeleton in a process known as moulting. During this process they are also able to grow back lost limbs! As a lobster gets larger it moults less frequently with adults only moulting ever 1 or 2 years.
Unmistakeable: common lobsters are a deep blue colour, with 2 long red antennae. They have long body and 2 large pincers, one markedly chunkier than the other - this is the crusher and the thinner pincer is the tearer.
Credit: Wildlife Trust
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Coldwater Coral
Like their tropical counterparts, the reefs are a living organism built of thousands of individual polyps, anemone-like creatures that share a hard skeleton. These reefs develop over many hundreds of years, with live coral sitting on top of layers of now-empty skeleton, sand and mud. The polyps feed by extending their stinging tentacles into the water column to catch plankton, krill and other small crustaceans. Lophelia reefs can become large, highly branched colonies which create a very strong, long-lasting structure. The reef creates a habitat for other marine life, with many deep sea species depending on them for food and shelter.
Credit: Wildlife Trust