Under the right circumstances, can lobsters live indefinitely?

Question

I've been reading a lot about longevity and I came up with this Wikipedia article where it states that it might be possible for lobsters to live indefinitely.

Recent research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken, or lose fertility with age. In fact, older lobsters are more fertile than younger lobsters. This longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs DNA sequences of the form "TTAGGG".[9] This sequence is often referred to as the telomeres of the DNA.[10][11] It has been argued that lobsters may exhibit negligible senescence and some scientists have claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc.[12] Their longevity allows them to reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kilograms (44.4 lb).[13][14]

I seriously find this hard to believe, so under the right circumstances, can lobsters maintain their Negligible Senescence forever?

Answer 1

Emerging Area of Aging Research: Long-Lived Animals with “Negligible Senescence”

Field observations have suggested for quite some time that certain fish, turtles, and invertebrates have extremely long maximum life span potential. Age validation techniques have since confirmed these observations, but scientific analysis to understand the genetic and biochemical basis of this longevity has occurred only recently. The Centenarian Species and Rockfish Project now encompasses 13 pilot research projects, including such diverse investigations as histology, a cDNA library, and mitochondrial mutation analysis. In this document, the term “negligible senescence” is defined, and its background is given; age validation techniques are listed, and the various projects to date, including research results, are summarized.

Longevity of lobsters is linked to ubiquitous telomerase expression.

Lobsters (Homarus americanus) grow throughout their life and the occurrence of senescence is slow.[...]We conclude that telomerase activation is a conserved mechanism for maintaining long-term cell proliferation capacity and preventing senescence, not only in cellular models or embryonic life stages but also in adult multicellular organisms.

Answer:

We don't know, and there are probably better examples of biological immortality than lobsters. It is still a matter under extensive research.

Additional resources:

• Fulltext of the first article
• Wikipedia on Biological immortality
• Wikipedia on Hayflick limit
• HowStuffWorks: 'Is there a 400 pound lobster out there?'
• Research Article: Telomere

Answer 2

No, they aren't immortal. They may not die of senescence, but they do eventually die. What kills them is being trapped in their shells.

Each molt takes more and more time and energy, and as the lobster grows older it becomes more likely to fail to molt successfully. Once this happens, the lobster is doomed. Bacteria and parasites start forming scar tissue around the shell, which consumes the lobster from the outside in. Lobsters also sometimes just die of exhaustion during the molts.

Additional sources:

• Twitter thread on the phenomenon, which is where I first heard about it.