Fisherman Catches, Donates Bizarre Lobster

New Hampshire 'calico' is a rarity
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 31, 2014 4:05 PM CDT
Fisherman Catches, Donates Bizarre Lobster
The calico lobster at the Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium in Hampton, N.H.   (Deb Cram)

A New Hampshire fisherman caught an extremely rare lobster, though the creature gets to live out its days at an aquarium rather than ending up as somebody's dinner. Josiah Beringer tells Seacoast Online that he found the calico lobster—it's bright orange, with dark blue spots—in a trap on July 23 in the mouth of New Hampshire's Hampton Harbor. He then donated the 1.5-pound, 5-year-old male to the Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium in Hampton. The aquarium's Ellen Goethel says calico lobsters are the second rarest in the world, after albino lobsters. She says the spots are the result of a genetic pigmentation mutation occurring in 1 in every 30 million to 50 million lobsters. (Click to see a red king crab that's actually blue.)

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