A rare calico lobster, bearing orange and black coloring believed to occur in only one in 30 million lobsters, was caught off Massachusetts and has a new home at a university.
Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center in Nahant said the female lobster was caught off the Massachusetts coast by Gloucester-based lobsterman Mike Tufts.
“One day he sent me a message with a picture of this beautiful calico and asked if we had room in our tanks for another beautiful, rare lobster,” Sierra Munoz, outreach program coordinator at the Marine Science Center, said in a news release.
“I said, ‘Of course we do,'” Munoz said. “It’s such a thoughtful — and fun — donation to our science education program.”
Munoz’s children dubbed the lobster Jackie, short of Jack O’Lantern.
The university is already home to Neptune, a blue lobster. The blue coloration is believed to occur in one out of 2 million lobsters, Munoz said.
“Normally, the lobsters that we see are reddish, brownish, or a little bit greenish,” Munoz said. “In the calico lobster, the astaxanthin combines with other pigments and proteins in a really unique way that gives her this really rare kind of mottled or freckled look.”
