My inbox is full of e-mails from fans of a television show called "The L Word." Sadly, the "L" doesn't stand for "lobster." The show is about lesbians in Los Angeles. The e-mails all asked a version of the following question:

Q: On the television show "The L Word," a lobster fact was recently mentioned. One of the characters claimed that in a pot of boiling water, male lobsters would form ladders with their claws to try to escape from death while female lobsters would intentionally pull one another down so they would all die together. Since you dispelled the lobster myth from the TV show "Friends" -- that lobsters mate for life -- could you shed some light on this subject?

A: I tried contacting the writers of "The L Word," but I got no response. I assume they invented this "fact" to serve as a convenient allegory. I have never run across any scientific evidence remotely suggestive of its validity. The notion that lobsters would be able to choose altruism or vindictiveness toward each other in the face of death seems a bizarre and fantastical form of anthropomorphism.

I forwarded "The L Word" question to an expert at the University of Maine's Lobster Institute who has studied various issues related to the cooking of lobsters. He had a similar reaction.

But I am always ready to be surprised by new revelations about lobster behavior, and much of what we know about lobster life that is true seems equally unbelievable.

If anything, the situation with male and female lobsters ought to be the reverse. If you've read THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, you know that female lobsters maintain a sort of sisterhood and cooperate; males just fight all the time. Draw your own conclusions about parallels with human behavior -- lesbian or otherwise.

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