The lobster may have divided, but it united New Englanders in fascination.
Cape Cod Seafood Company has donated a rare bicolored lobster to a science center, saving the creature from the kettle due to its striking color. The lobster found is the typical brown on one side and bright orange on the other, and the two-tone pattern extends all the way from its head to its tail.
Representatives of Wellfleet Shellfish Company in Eastham, Massachusetts, said Monday that they had been receiving inquiries about the crustaceans for days. The company said it donated the lobster to the Woods Hole Science Aquarium in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and it will be displayed to the public when the aquarium reopens.
“The lobster is now housed with Woods Hole Science Aquarium animals currently housed in tanks in the Marine Biological Laboratory during the aquarium’s construction period. When the aquarium reopens, the lobster will be on display, providing visitors with a rare look at one of the ocean’s most surprising natural anomalies,” the oyster company said in a statement.
Fishermen caught a lobster off Cape Cod on April 16. Strangely colored lobsters They often make their way to New England docks throughout the spring and summer, but the two-colored specimen is rarer than most.
American lobster is usually a mottled brown color, but it may suffer from color abnormalities due to genetic mutations that affect proteins associated with its pigments. Some are blue or orange, some are spotted calico and others are so brightly colored they are called “cotton candy” lobsters.
Bicolored lobster could be caused by two lobster eggs merging and growing as one, marine sciences professor Markus Friedrich of the University of New England in Maine told The Associated Press in 2024. There are estimates about the rarity of different lobster colors, though Friedrich also cautioned that these numbers are approximate.
On Cape Cod, Wellfleet Shellfish said it is treating the two-colored lobster as a “wonderful and exciting discovery.”