The spiny lobster may not make a pretty sound, but it uses the same tools violinists use to play beautiful concertos, a new study finds. The lobsters are known for their spine-encrusted antennae and the way they migrate in long, single file lines along the ocean floor.
Lobsters also have a bow and a string.
They're just not resonant. In place of a gut string bow, the lobster has a nub of tissue called the plectrum. This soft tissue rubs over the soft surface of a fleshy file just below the lobster's eye. The sticking and slipping motion over microscopic ridges on the file provides the lobster with its caustic sound. The sound not only resembles the violin's mechanisms, it's also created in the same way that rubbing a wet thumb over a balloon makes a squeak or the moving parts of a squeaky door hinge creak.