The lobster emoji was anatomically inaccurate so now it's getting fixed
Lobsters are kind of a big deal to the people of Maine. Which is why they weren't at all pleased to discover the new lobster emoji was anatomically inaccurate.
Thankfully, Unicode took instant action and rectified its mistake.
In early February, the U.S. state—famed for its lobsters—celebrated its victory in securing a lobster emoji. In September 2017, Sen. Angus King of Maine penned a letter to the Unicode Consortium, urging it to release a lobster emoji.
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But, Mainers' victory was short-lived. When the official design was released, a few people pointed out that the lobster had the incorrect number of legs.
Seemingly, the lobster emoji—which featured three sets of legs—was missing a set of legs.
"Lobsters have four sets plus the big claws," wrote LA Times reporter Joel Rubin on Twitter.
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According to the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, American lobsters have four sets of "pereiopods," or "walking legs" in addition to its claws.
Emojipedia's Chief Emoji Officer Jeremy Burge—vice-chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee—told Mashable the sample images created for each year's emoji release are designed to be "as close as possible" to what they think will "come on phones later in the year."
"For the lobster emoji, it wasn’t an intentional choice to reduce the number of legs, and given the realistic design it makes sense to be accurate," says Burge. "I might have let it slide given that the legs are so small at emoji sizes, but given the number of complaints from passionate lobster fans, the least we could do is put an extra pair of legs on."
"When we saw the tweets and headlines about the 'anatomically incorrect lobster' the first thing our designer Joshua Jones said to me was: 'can’t believe I messed up a leg count!'"
Unicode has updated its design and a four-legged lobster will be hitting phones later this year.
Thank goodness for that!
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
