eggs hatch directly into juveniles. Taxonomy and evolution Cape lobsters are elusive and rare, with only fourteen specimens having been collected between 1792 (the date of its first description) and 1992. These include five males in the collections of the South African Museum (Cape Town), two in the Natural History Museum (London), one in each of the East London Museum, the (Leiden) and the Albany Museum (Grahamstown), and one male and one female in the (Paris). In 1992, a Cape lobster was discovered at Dassen Island, and the publicity the find generated resulted in more than 20 additional specimens being reported. The Cape lobster was first described by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst in 1792 as Cancer (Astacus) capensis. It was independently described in 1793 by Johan Christian Fabricius as Astacus flavus, possibly based on the same type specimen. When Friedrich Weber erected the genus Homarus in 1795, he included Fabricius' species in it, but this placement was not followed by later authors. The species reached its current classification in 1995, when the monotypic genus Homarinus was erected by Irv Kornfield, Austin B. Williams and Robert S. Steneck. While analyses of morphology suggest a close relationship between Homarinus and Homarus, molecular analyses using mitochondrial DNA reveal that they are not sister taxa. Both genera lack ornamentation such as spines and carinae, but are thought to have reached that state independently, through convergent evolution. The closest living relative of Homarus is Nephrops norvegicus, while the closest relatives of Homarinus are Thymops and Thymopides. Notes References External links True lobsters Endemic crustaceans of South Africa Crustaceans described in 1792