Why Lobsters Can't Taste Food Without Their Feet

Now, there's a wide array of odd eating habits and curious digestive systems in the animal kingdom. Cows, famously, have four stomachs, but there's actually a little more to the situation than that. As the University of Minnesota explains, ruminants technically have four separate sections of one stomach, each with a different role to play in the complicated cow consumption process.

Lobsters, according to the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, are well-equipped to eat the tough seafood (crabs and mussels among them) that makes up much of their preferred diet. Using their claws, they can rip their prey into tasty little pieces and break through tough shells. From there, morsels are delivered into the maxillipeds (which can be loosely deemed the lobster's "mouth") by its limbs. In short, they employ the same "crush, smoosh, and shovel in" maneuver favored by human babies in high chairs.

Lobsters and human infants do differ in eating habits and mechanisms in some subtle ways, though. For instance, the "teeth" of a lobster are called a gastric mill, the outlet goes on, where it breaks food down for digestion. This is not in what passes for its mouth but in the stomach. For another, hairs on the creature's body allow it to both smell and taste. Yes, they taste with their feet.