Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of social and economic changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes, side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Seafood is common, often grilled, but served raw as sashimi or in sushi and vegetables are deep-fried in a light batter, as tempura. Apart from rice, staples include noodles, such as soba, Japan has many simmered dishes such as fish products in broth called oden, or beef in sukiyaki and nikujaga. Foreign food—in particular Chinese food like ramen, fried dumplings, and gyōza—as well as foods like curry, the Japanese shunned meat, but with the modernization of Japan in the 1880s, meat-based dishes such as tonkatsu became common. Japanese cuisine, particularly sushi, has become popular throughout the world, as of 2011, Japan overtook France in number of Michelin-starred restaurants and has maintained the title since.
Japanese cuisine is based on combining the staple food, which is steamed rice or gohan, with one or several okazu or main dishes. This may be accompanied by a clear or miso soup and tsukemono, the phrase ichijū-sansai refers to the makeup of a typical meal served, but has roots in classic kaiseki, and yūsoku cuisine. The term is used to describe the first course served in standard kaiseki cuisine nowadays. Rice is served in its own small bowl, and each item is placed on its own small plate or bowl for each individual portion. This is done even at home and it contrasts with the Western-style dinners at home, where each individual takes helpings from the large serving dishes of food presented at the middle of the dining table. Placing okazu on top of rice and soiling it is frowned upon by old-fashioned etiquette. The small rice bowl or chawan doubles as a word for the large tea bowls in tea ceremonies, thus in common speech, the drinking cup is referred to as yunomi-jawan or yunomi for the purpose of distinction.
In the olden days, among the nobility, each course of a full-course Japanese meal would be brought on serving napkins called zen, which were originally platformed trays or small dining tables. In the modern age, faldstool trays or stackup-type legged trays may still be used in zashiki, i. e. tatami-mat rooms. Teishoku means a meal of fixed menu, a dinner à prix fixe served at shokudō or ryōriten, which is somewhat vague, defines it as fare served at teishoku dining hall, etc. Emphasis is placed on seasonality of food or shun, and dishes are designed to herald the arrival of the four seasons or calendar months, seasonality means taking advantage of the fruit of the mountains as well as the fruit of the sea as they come into season. Thus the first catch of skipjack tunas that arrives with the Kuroshio Current has traditionally been greatly prized, if something becomes available rather earlier than usual, the first crop or early catch is called hashiri
Fresh water
Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water although it does include mineral-rich waters such as chalybeate springs, the term sweet water has been used to describe fresh water in contrast to salt water. The term fresh water does not have the meaning as potable water. Much of the fresh water and ground water is unsuitable for drinking without some form of purification because of the presence of chemical or biological contaminants. It may be in contact with the underlying underground water. The majority of water on Earth is in ice caps. The source of almost all water is precipitation from the atmosphere, in the form of mist, rain. Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea, in some cases this acid rain results in pollution of lakes and rivers. In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from the sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds.
This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium, magnesium, significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa. Water is an issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use water but many organisms including the great majority of higher plants. Out of all the water on Earth, saline water in oceans and saline groundwater make up about 97% of it. Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes, 20% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes. Swamps have most of the balance only a small amount in rivers. In areas with no water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density. Most of the fresh water is frozen in ice sheets. Many areas suffer from lack of distribution of water, such as deserts
Wasabi
Wasabi is a plant of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbages and mustard. It is called Japanese horseradish, although horseradish is a different plant, the plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are E. japonicum Daruma and Mazuma, but there are many others. Wasabi is generally sold either as a stem, which must be very finely grated before use, as dried powder in large quantities, in sushi preparation, sushi chefs usually put the wasabi between the fish and the rice because covering wasabi until served preserves its flavor. Fresh wasabi leaves can be eaten, having the flavor of wasabi stems. Legumes may be roasted or fried, coated with wasabi powder mixed with sugar, salt, or oil, Wasabi favours growing conditions that restrict its wide cultivation. This makes it impossible for growers to fully satisfy commercial demand, outside Japan, it is rare to find real wasabi plants. Due to its high cost, a substitute is a mixture of horseradish, starch.
Often packages are labeled as wasabi while the ingredients do not actually include any part of the wasabi plant and horseradish are similar in taste and pungency due to similar isothiocyanate levels. The primary difference between the two is color with Wasabi being naturally green, in Japan, horseradish is referred to as seiyō wasabi. In the United States, true wasabi is generally found only at specialty grocers, the same compound is responsible for the pungency of horseradish and mustard. Allyl isothiocyanate can be released when the plants have been damaged. Because the burning sensations of wasabi are not oil-based, they are short-lived compared to the effects of chili peppers, the sensation is felt primarily in the nasal passage and can be quite painful depending on the amount consumed. Inhaling or sniffing wasabi vapor has an effect like smelling salts, one deaf subject participating in a test of the prototype awoke within 10 seconds of wasabi vapor sprayed into his sleeping chamber. The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the researchers for determining the density of airborne wasabi to wake people in the event of an emergency.
Few places are suitable for large-scale wasabi cultivation, and cultivation is difficult even in ideal conditions, iwate prefecture There are numerous artificial cultivation facilities as far north as Hokkaido and as far south as Kyushu. As the demand for real wasabi is very high, Japan imports an amount from China, Taiwan, in North America, a handful of companies and small farmers cultivate Wasabia japonica. A UK grower, believed to be the producer in Europe, grows wasabi in Dorset
Crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting tail, usually entirely hidden under the thorax. They live in all the oceans, in fresh water. Many other animals with similar names – such as crabs, king crabs, porcelain crabs, horseshoe crabs. Crabs are generally covered with an exoskeleton, composed primarily of calcium carbonate. Crabs are found in all of the oceans, while many crabs live in fresh water and on land. Crabs vary in size from the pea crab, a few wide, to the Japanese spider crab. About 850 species of crab are freshwater, terrestrial or semi-terrestrial species and they were previously thought to be a monophyletic group, but are now believed to represent at least two distinct lineages, one in the Old World and one in the New World. The earliest unambiguous crab fossils date from the Jurassic, although Carboniferous Imocaris, known only from its carapace, the radiation of crabs in the Cretaceous and afterward may be linked either to the break-up of Gondwana or to the concurrent radiation of bony fish, crabs main predators.
Crabs often show marked sexual dimorphism, males often have larger claws, a tendency which is particularly pronounced in the fiddler crabs of the genus Uca. In fiddler crabs, males have one claw which is greatly enlarged, another conspicuous difference is the form of the pleon, in most male crabs, this is narrow and triangular in form, while females have a broader, rounded abdomen. This is because female crabs brood fertilised eggs on their pleopods, crabs attract a mate through chemical, acoustic, or vibratory means. Pheromones are used by most fully aquatic crabs, while terrestrial and semiterrestrial crabs often use visual signals, the vast number of brachyuran crabs have internal fertilisation and mate belly-to-belly. For many aquatic species, mating takes place just after the female has moulted and is still soft, females can store the sperm for a long time before using it to fertilise their eggs. When fertilisation has taken place, the eggs are released onto the abdomen, below the tail flap.
In this location, they are protected during embryonic development, females carrying eggs are called berried since the eggs resemble round berries. When development is complete, the releases the newly hatched larvae into the water. The release is timed with the tides. The free-swimming tiny zoea larvae can float and take advantage of water currents and they have a spine, which probably reduces the rate of predation by larger animals
Roe
Roe or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses of fish and certain marine animals, such as shrimp and sea urchins. As a seafood, roe is used both as an ingredient in many dishes and as a raw ingredient. The roe of marine animals, such as the roe of lumpsucker, roe from a sturgeon or sometimes other fishes is the raw base product from which caviar is made. The term soft roe or white roe denotes fish milt, the large Indian population in KwaZulu Natal consumes fish roe in the form of slightly sour curry or battered and deep fried. Shad and other roe are sometimes pan-fried with bacon, spot Prawn roe is a delicacy from the North Pacific. Flounder roe, pan-fried and served with grits is popular on the Southeastern coast, in the province of New Brunswick, roe of the Atlantic sturgeon is harvested from the Saint John river. Roe from the cisco is harvested from the Great Lakes, primarily for overseas markets, roe is extracted from herring and sea urchins.
In coastal British Columbia, Fraser River white sturgeon are sustainably farmed to produce caviar, in Chile, sea urchin roe is a traditional food known as an erizo de mar. Chile is one of countries that exports sea urchins to Japan in order to fulfill Japanese demand. In Peru, roe is served in seafood restaurants sauteed and pan fried. Cojinova yields the best roe for this dish, despite the fact that many people like it, it is hardly considered a delicacy. Upscale restaurants are not expected to offer it, but street vendors, cojinova itself is caught for its fish meal, not for its roe, which is considered a chance product. Sea urchin roe is considered a delicacy and it is used to add strength to ceviche, roe from the Ilish fish is considered a delicacy in Bangladesh. The roe is usually deep-fried, although other preparations such as mashed roe where the roe crushed along with oil and pepper, in many regions in China and urchin roes are eaten as a delicacy. Crab roe are used as topping in dishes such as crab roe tofu.
Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant serves crab roe xiaolongbao as their special, Shrimp roes are eaten in certain places, especially around the downstream of Yangtze River, such as Wuhu, as toppings for noodle soup. Among the tribal populace of eastern India, roe that has been deeply roasted over a fire is a delicacy. In this region, the roe of rohu is considered a delicacy and is fried or as a stuffing within a fried pointed gourd to make potoler dolma
Fish
A fish is any member of a group of animals that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish and cartilaginous, tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered obsolete or paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods, because in this manner the term fish is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification, the earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts, fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms.
Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators, the first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water and they can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans. With 33,100 described species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide, especially as food and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean. They are caught by fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, fish do not represent a monophyletic group, and therefore the evolution of fish is not studied as a single event. Early fish from the record are represented by a group of small, jawless.
Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct, an extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placodermi fossils, the diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, fish may have evolved from a creature similar to a coral-like sea squirt, whose larvae resemble primitive fish in important ways. The first ancestors of fish may have kept the form into adulthood. Fish are a group, that is, any clade containing all fish contains the tetrapods
Zooplankton
Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans and bodies of fresh water. The word zooplankton is derived from the Greek zoon, meaning animal, individual zooplankton are usually microscopic, but some are larger and visible with the naked eye. Zooplankton is a categorization spanning a range of organism sizes including small protozoans, although zooplankton are primarily transported by ambient water currents, many have locomotion, used to avoid predators or to increase prey encounter rate. Ecologically important protozoan zooplankton groups include the foraminiferans and dinoflagellates and this wide phylogenetic range includes a similarly wide range in feeding behavior, filter feeding and symbiosis with autotrophic phytoplankton as seen in corals. Zooplankton feed on bacterioplankton, other zooplankton, detritus, as a result, zooplankton are primarily found in surface waters where food resources are abundant. Just as any species can be limited within a geographical region, species of zooplankton are not dispersed uniformly or randomly within a region of the ocean.
As with phytoplankton, ‘patches’ of zooplankton species exist throughout the ocean, zooplankton patchiness can be influenced by biological factors, as well as other physical factors. Biological factors include breeding, concentration of phytoplankton, the physical factor that influences zooplankton distribution the most is mixing of the water column that affects nutrient availability and, in turn, phytoplankton production. Since they are small, zooplankton can respond rapidly to increases in phytoplankton abundance, for instance. Zooplankton can act as a disease reservoir, crustacean zooplankton have been found to house the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, by allowing the cholera vibrios to attach to their chitinous exoskeletons. This symbiotic relationship enhances the ability to survive in an aquatic environment, as the exoskeleton provides the bacterium with carbon. A global coverage database of zooplankton biomass and abundance data
Oyster
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape, but not all, oysters are in the superfamily Ostreoidea. Some kinds of oysters are consumed by humans, cooked or raw. Some kinds of oysters are harvested for the pearl produced within the mantle. Windowpane oysters are harvested for their translucent shells, which are used to various kinds of decorative objects. True oysters are members of the family Ostreidae and this family includes the edible oysters, which mainly belong to the genera Ostrea, Crassostrea and Saccostrea. Examples include the Belon oyster, eastern oyster, Olympia oyster, Pacific oyster, almost all shell-bearing mollusks can secrete pearls, yet most are not very valuable. Pearl oysters are not closely related to oysters, being members of a distinct family. Both cultured pearls and natural pearls can be extracted from pearl oysters, though other molluscs, such as the freshwater mussels, the largest pearl-bearing oyster is the marine Pinctada maxima, which is roughly the size of a dinner plate.
Not all individual oysters produce pearls naturally, in fact, in a harvest of two and a half tons of oysters, only three to four oysters produce what commercial buyers consider to be absolute perfect pearls. In nature, pearl oysters produce pearls by covering a minute invasive object with nacre, over the years, the irritating object is covered with enough layers of nacre to become a pearl. The many different types and shapes of pearls depend on the pigment of the nacre. Pearl farmers can culture a pearl by placing a nucleus, usually a piece of polished mussel shell, in three to seven years, the oyster can produce a perfect pearl. These pearls are not as valuable as natural pearls, but look exactly the same, in fact, since the beginning of the 20th century, when several researchers discovered how to produce artificial pearls, the cultured pearl market has far outgrown the natural pearl market. A number of molluscs have common names that include the word oyster, usually because they either taste like or look somewhat like true oysters.
Examples include, Thorny oysters in the genus Spondylus Pilgrim oyster, another term for a scallop, because of its good flavor, it commands high prices. Oysters are filter feeders, drawing water in over their gills through the beating of cilia. Suspended plankton and particles are trapped in the mucus of a gill, and from there are transported to the mouth, where they are eaten, Oysters feed most actively at temperatures above 10 °C
Scallop
Scallop is a common name that is primarily applied to any one of numerous species of saltwater clams or marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name scallop is applied to species in other closely related families within the superfamily Pectinoidea. Scallops are a family of bivalves which are found in all of the worlds oceans. They are one of few groups of bivalves to be primarily free-living, with many species capable of rapidly swimming short distances. Scallops have a nervous system, and unlike most other bivalves all scallops have a ring of numerous simple eyes situated around the edge of their mantles. Many species of scallop are highly prized as a food source, the word scallop is applied to the meat of these bivalves when it is sold as seafood. Owing to their distribution, scallop shells are a common sight on beaches and are often brightly coloured. Scallops inhabit all the oceans of the world, with the largest number of living in the Indo-Pacific region.
Most species live in shallow waters from the low tide line to 100 meters. Although some species live in very narrow environments, most are opportunistic. Scallops can be living within, upon, or under either rocks, rubble, sea grass, sand. Most scallops begin their lives as byssally attached juveniles, an ability that some retain throughout their lives while others grow into freeliving adults. There is very little variation in the arrangement of organs and systems within the scallop family. The shell of a scallop consists of two sides or valves, a valve and a right one, divided by a plane of symmetry. Most species of scallop rest on their right valve, and consequently this valve is often deeper and these ears may be of similar size and shape, or the anterior ear may be somewhat larger. As is the case in almost all bivalves, a series of lines and/ or growth rings originate at the center of the hinge and these growth rings increase in size downwards until they reach the curved ventral edge of the shell.
The shell of most scallops is streamlined to facilitate ease of movement during swimming at some point in the cycle, while providing protection from predators. Scallops with ridged valves have the advantage of the architectural strength provided by these ridges called ribs, although the ribs are somewhat costly in terms of weight and mass
Cephalopod
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, fishermen sometimes call them inkfish, referring to their common ability to squirt ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of known as teuthology. Cephalopods became dominant during the Ordovician period, represented by primitive nautiloids, the class now contains two, only distantly related, extant subclasses, which includes octopuses and cuttlefish, and Nautiloidea, represented by Nautilus and Allonautilus. In the Coleoidea, the shell has been internalized or is absent, whereas in the Nautiloidea. About 800 living species of cephalopods have been identified, two important extinct taxa are the Ammonoidea and Belemnoidea. There are over 800 extant species of cephalopod, although new species continue to be described, an estimated 11,000 extinct taxa have been described, although the soft-bodied nature of cephalopods means they are not easily fossilised.
Cephalopods are found in all the oceans of Earth, none of them can tolerate freshwater, but the brief squid, Lolliguncula brevis, found in Chesapeake Bay, is a notable partial exception in that it tolerates brackish water. Cephalopods are thought to be unable to live in due to multiple biochemical constraints. Cephalopods occupy most of the depth of the ocean, from the plain to the sea surface. Their diversity is greatest near the equator and decreases towards the poles, Cephalopods are widely regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates, and have well developed senses and large brains. The nervous system of cephalopods is the most complex of the invertebrates, the brain is protected in a cartilaginous cranium. Cephalopods have known to climb out of their aquaria, maneuver a distance of the lab floor, enter another aquarium to feed on the crabs. Cephalopods are social creatures, when isolated from their own kind, some cephalopods are able to fly through the air for distances of up to 50 m.
While cephalopods are not particularly aerodynamic, they achieve these impressive ranges by jet-propulsion, the animals spread their fins and tentacles to form wings and actively control lift force with body posture. Cephalopods have advanced vision, can detect gravity with statocysts, and have a variety of sense organs. Octopuses use their arms to explore their environment and can use them for depth perception, most cephalopods rely on vision to detect predators and prey, and to communicate with one another. Consequently, cephalopod vision is acute, training experiments have shown that the octopus can distinguish the brightness, shape
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection.
Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships.
At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
Lobster
Lobsters comprise a family of large marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails, and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor, three of their five pairs of legs have claws, including the first pair, which are usually much larger than the others. Highly prized as seafood, lobsters are economically important, and are one of the most profitable commodities in coastal areas they populate. Commercially important species include two species of Homarus from the northern Atlantic Ocean, and scampi – the Northern Hemisphere genus Nephrops, although several other groups of crustaceans have the word lobster in their names, the unqualified term lobster generally refers to the clawed lobsters of the family Nephropidae. Clawed lobsters are not closely related to spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, the closest living relatives of clawed lobsters are the reef lobsters and the three families of freshwater crayfish. Lobsters are invertebrates with a protective exoskeleton. Like most arthropods, lobsters must moult to grow, which leaves them vulnerable, during the moulting process, several species change colour.
Lobsters have 10 walking legs, the front three pairs bear claws, the first of which are larger than the others, although lobsters are largely bilaterally symmetrical like most other arthropods, some genera possess unequal, specialised claws. Lobster anatomy includes the cephalothorax which fuses the head and the thorax, the lobsters head bears antennae, mandibles, the first and second maxillae, and the first and third maxillipeds. Because lobsters live in murky environments at the bottom of the ocean, the lobster eye has a reflective structure above a convex retina. In contrast, most complex eyes use refractive ray concentrators and a concave retina, the abdomen includes swimmerets and its tail is composed of uropods and the telson. Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue blood due to the presence of hemocyanin which contains copper, in contrast and many other animals have red blood from iron-rich hemoglobin. Lobsters possess a green hepatopancreas, called the tomalley by chefs, Lobsters of the family Nephropidae are similar in overall form to a number of other related groups.
The distinctions from fossil families such as the Chilenophoberidae are based on the pattern of grooves on the carapace, Lobsters live up to an estimated 45 to 50 years in the wild, although determining age is difficult. Research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken or lose fertility with age, and this longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs long repetitive sections of DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, referred to as telomeres. Telomerase is expressed by most vertebrates during embryonic stages, but is absent from adult stages of life. However, unlike most vertebrates, lobsters express telomerase as adults through most tissue, Lobster longevity is limited by their size. Lobsters, like many other crustaceans, grow throughout life and are able to add new muscle cells at each moult
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