The blue spiny lobster lives only on Mexico’s Pacific coast, and it’s the lobster of Cabo’s rocky reefs. It has no claws; when threatened it rubs a pad of soft tissue against its head to make a rasping sound.
A clawless spiny lobster with long, spiny antennae and a smooth, naked abdomen with no transverse grooves. The giveaway is on the tail: abdominal segments 1 to 3 each carry a narrow whitish line along the rear edge, and segments 4 to 6 a row of rather large whitish spots. Usually not more than 12 cm in carapace length. In Mexico it’s also called langosta pinta, de piedra, negra or prieta.
The blue lobster is endemic to Mexico’s Pacific coast. It lives from the Pacific side of southern Baja California, around Isla Magdalena, through the Gulf of California to the Gulf of Tehuantepec, and since the early 2000s a permanent population has been documented as far north as Bahía Tortugas and Punta Eugenia. It lives on rocky, rarely gravelly bottom from just below the tide line to about 30 m. When it was described in 1895, its type locality was given simply as “Basse Californie.”
Females in BCS carry hundreds of thousands of eggs under the tail. In Loreto Bay, smaller females (under 90 mm carapace) were found with eggs in spring and summer and larger ones in autumn, when the water is warmest; winter is the time to molt and grow. The sex ratio is about even, but above 110 mm carapace the big lobsters are mostly males. Red lobster is the cold-water species of Baja’s Pacific coast; records south of Bahía Magdalena are considered strays, while a separate population inside the Gulf, around Bahía de Los Ángeles and Isla Tiburón, may have been cut off when the peninsula closed its last seaway millions of years ago.
Spiny lobsters don’t rasp hard ridges together like crickets. A soft pad of tissue at the base of each antenna sticks and slips along a smooth file near the eyes, like a bow on a string. Because the pad is soft, they can still sound the alarm right after molting, when their shell is soft and they are most vulnerable.
Source ↗Mexico’s official fisheries chart calls the blue lobster endemic to the Mexican Pacific. In Baja California Sur it is the minor catch: 90% of recorded lobster landings in the state are red lobster and only 10% blue and green.
Source ↗Blue lobster was long thought to stop at Bahía Santa María. Fieldwork from 2000 to 2005 found a permanent population, mixed with red lobster, from Bahía Tortugas to Punta Eugenia. Retired fishermen there said that 30 or 40 years earlier they had rarely caught it, mostly in warm-water years.
Source ↗In Loreto Bay, a single clutch held between 94,837 and 830,149 eggs, about 950 eggs per gram of female. Females of 80 to 110 mm carapace length produced 80% of all eggs, and they can spawn up to four times a season.
Source ↗Since July 2018, blue and green lobster caught in Baja California and Baja California Sur must measure between 81 and 112 mm in carapace length. The cap protects the large lobsters, not just the small ones.
Source ↗In 2004 the red lobster fishery of the FEDECOOP cooperatives on Baja’s central Pacific coast became the first artisanal fishery in the world certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. It earned its third recertification in 2022, landing about 1,300 t a season.
Source ↗Around Los Cabos nobody fishes for lobster on a charter: Mexican sport fishing rules forbid taking any crustacean, with hook and line or by spearfishing. You see them instead on rocky reefs; the online reef guide reefguide.org illustrates the species with photos taken at Cabo San Lucas, and a diver’s report shows one at El Arco. A scientific survey in Loreto Bay found them at night, 1 to 10 m deep. Look, photograph, and leave them in their crevice.
The lobster on Baja menus comes from a commercial fishery run by permit and concession holders. Traps are the only gear allowed in the Pacific and the Gulf of California, worked from small boats of up to 10.5 m with two or three fishers, and traps must be checked within 72 hours. The best-known fishery is red lobster on the central Pacific coast, where 11 cooperatives make up FEDECOOP; around 90% of that catch is exported, mainly to China.
Spiny lobster is one of Baja’s most prized seafoods and must be landed whole. In Los Cabos waters, from Boca de la Soledad around Cabo San Lucas and along the Gulf coast of the peninsula, blue, green and red lobster are closed from May 1 to October 31, so local lobster comes from the November–April season. Red lobster from the central Pacific coast is fished from roughly mid-September through February.
| Sport fishing and spearfishing (NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 update) | Taking crustaceans is prohibited; lobster is off-limits to anglers and divers |
|---|---|
| Commercial fishery (NOM-006-SAG/PESC-2016) | Permit or concession only; traps are the only gear; egg-bearing females go back; lobster landed whole |
| Size limit, BC and BCS | Blue and green lobster 81–112 mm carapace (2018); red lobster at least 82.5 mm |
| Closed season, Los Cabos (Zone III) | May 1 – October 31, Boca de la Soledad to Cabo San Lucas plus a 0–100 fathom strip along the peninsula’s Gulf coast (since 2025) |
| Closed season, central and northern Pacific coast | February 16 – September 14 and March 1 – September 24 in zones I and II (2024–2027) |
| Mexico (NOM-059) | Not listed |
| IUCN Red List | Least Concern (2011) |
In Mexico, recreational anglers and divers may not take lobster of any kind.
Green lobster (P. gracilis), also found in BCS, has a white band along the rear of every tail segment set off by dark bands, on a brownish or bluish-green body. Red lobster (P. interruptus) is evenly brownish red with no spots or bands, has tail grooves abruptly broken in the middle, and is the dominant lobster of the Pacific coast north of Bahía Magdalena.
No. Mexico’s sport fishing rules prohibit taking crustaceans, by hook and line or by spearfishing. Only permit and concession holders may fish lobster commercially, with traps.
The commercial closed season in Los Cabos waters runs from May 1 to October 31, so local lobster is fished from November to April. Red lobster on the central Pacific coast is fished from about mid-September to February.
Blue lobster has narrow white lines on the first three tail segments and rows of large white spots on the last three. Green lobster has white bands on every tail segment. Red lobster is evenly brownish red and lives mainly on the Pacific coast north of Bahía Magdalena.
Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.
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