Kat found him as he continued to pick apart his shed shell, using his skillful pinchers on the next pair of legs after his claws, to pick apart the shell.
He was too hungry to be too fascinated for the moment with the process as his legs transported pieces of his old shell to the mouthparts. Most of Dan's "mouth" was now found on the outside of his "face" where a frightening array of sharp-edged feeding appendages made short work of each bit of shell by tearing, sifting and grinding the calcium-rich resource. The outermost pair of mouthparts was lined with long sensory hairs for tasting...
So, in all honesty, Dan could answer whether he tasted good. The molt had left him so starved that anything might have tasted good, but he in fact found his old shell delicious. If the hard shell had him hungry for more, he could only imagine what his lobster flesh tasted like.
Dan continued to hold bits of his old shell in place with his legs as he tore off shreds by gripping the shell fragment with the teeth located on the outermost mouthparts and then jerking his heads backward to help demolish the shell into more manageable segments.
Four more pairs of mouthparts brandished and fluttered to direct the shell to the jaws. Dan's rock-hard lobster jaws opened and closed from side to side, rather than up and down as he would have worked his human jaws. Beyond these crushing mandibles, Dan had fleshy lips and a short esophagus through which food traveled to reach the stomach located less than than an inch away from his mouth.
Kat smiled as she watched her brother's strange razor-sharp teeth grip and shred the shell.
As he ate, his lobster body worked diligently to harden Dan's new shell. Gastroliths along the stomach lining had been storing calcium without Dan being aware of the fact. Now they released the calcium to quickly harden his new shell after molting.
"Your table manners are disgusting," Kat poked into Dan's thoughts, which remained frenzied and focused on devouring his old shell to reclaim its calcium.
When he only grunted in response and ignored her, she upped the ante. "Just imagine if mom and dad could see you now."
That did it. Dan halted his feeding to deal with a wave of embarrassment and shame that still clung to him.
As he took time to engage his sister, the bits of shell he'd already eaten made their way through the rest of his lobster gut, which is mostly a length of intestine with an opening on the underside of the end of his tail.
"Your new shell seems to be coming in nicely, brother," Kat said. "Bravo."
Dan waved his antennae and detected an alarming absence of anything else edible in the tank.
"Kat..." Dan started and then reconsidered.
"Yes?"
He felt embarrassed to have to ask her, and she could sense it, hence the widening of her smile as she looked through the glass of the tank.
"I'm so hungry!" Dan told her. "Please, I need something more to eat."
"What would you like? Soup? A sandwich?"
Dan produced a mental groan. "Kat, be serious. I need food... that molting left me starving. Maybe something fishy... Are there any cans of sardines in the house?"
"I'll see what I can find."
As soon as she left, Dan fell onto the discarded shell and continued to dismantle it. He was making short work of the shell when she returned and began dumping food into the tank. She had found a hard-boiled egg, a slice of cheese, and, as requested, the smelly contents of a tin of sardines.
His sensory organs went into overdrive. The good smelled so good to him. He began ripping apart one of the sardines.
"I thought some soft foods would help speed along your meal," she said but noticed his entire attention was now devoted to feeding.
"Oh well, if you're going to ignore me, I'll go," Kat said. "Bon appétit."