A blue lobster may not raise any eyebrows. Neither would a red lobster.
But a recent discovery of a two-toned lobster off the coast of New Brunswick has at least one fisherman shocked after he got a look at a rare specimen most people may not even know exists.
“I’ll remember this for a while,” Fisherman Blaine Stuart told CTV Atlantic. “Probably never see another one.”
Stuart says his crew found the lobster in the waters off Beaver Harbour, N.B.
Two crew members made the discovery and told Stuart about it.
Shocked by its unique colouring, he took the lobster to the Huntsman Fundy Discovery Aquarium in Saint Andrews, N.B. to find out more.
Though they have seen two-toned lobsters before, aquarium staff say they were surprised by the lobster’s vivid colouring.
“It’s much more dramatic than any other half-and-half we’ve had here,” Aquarist Katieanne Rogers said.
The lobster’s colours are split right down its centre. On one side is a bright orange and a dark blue on the other.
Much like a human’s skin, the shell of a lobster has its colour determined by how prominent certain pigments are.
In humans, it’s called melanin. In lobsters it’s a pigment called astaxanthin.
Two-toned lobsters are often called “split,” or “Chimera lobsters,” and the New England Aquarium says that lobster scientists theorize that the two-tone colour may be caused by a cellular split when the eggs are first fertilized.
Split lobsters are reportedly incredibly rare, with the odds of finding one estimated to be in the area of 1 in 50 million.
As for this particular rare lobster, Stuart says that he’s happy to leave it in the hands of the aquarium, who are excited to have it.
“We have blue lobsters, white lobsters, calico lobster, but we do not have a half-and-half lobster right now,” said Cynthia Callahan, manager of the Hunstman Fundy Aqarium. “So we’re very happy to have one.”
With a report from CTV Atlantic’s Jessica Ng
