Scientists believe that American lobsters are using jet assistance to travel faster across the ocean floor. Lobsters have small paddle-like structures called pleopods on their abdomen, and they can fan these pleopods to create a wake which propels them forward.
A graduate student and a professor at St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Canada, who presumably had nothing better to do, took the abdomen of a lobster, emptied out the tissue, and installed 8 small servomotors to fan the pleopods at the same rate that a lobster would. The pleopods pulled in water from around the lobster’s body and directed it out as a jet behind. This produced a surprisingly large wake and therefore thrust, which could help the lobsters move faster while walking along the bottom of the sea.
Pleopod shapes vary among different species of lobster, so the size of this effect is also likely to vary.
There’s more information and a good video of a lobster moving its pleopods on the BBC’s website.
