A pathological study was performed on wild spiny lobsters with cardiac disease found in captured and stored groups of such lobsters in the Minami-Izu region of Shizuoka Prefecture. The present study evaluated the microbiology and histopathology of 39 lobsters including animated and weakened individuals.
Histopathological examination revealed that all the lobsters examined had cardiac lesions showing degeneration and necrosis of muscle fibers with haemocyte infiltration. No microorganisms were detected in the cardiac lesions on which histological and cultivating examinations were performed. From the results, it was considered that a disease characterized by degeneration and necrosis of cardiac muscles resulting in myocarditis would prevail in a cluster of free-living wild spiny lobsters.