This rare orange lobster was caught recently in Casco Bay by Capt. Gregg Turner and his crew, Sage Blake and Mandy Cyr. Courtesy of the University of New England
A rare orange lobster was caught recently off the coast of Maine by a Scarborough fisherman.
The lobster, which has one claw, was caught in Casco Bay by Capt. Gregg Turner and his crew, Sage Blake and Mandy Cyr while fishing on the boat Deborah and Megan, according to a statement by Cyr.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen one and the second time Captain Gregg has,” Cyr said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
The orange lobster is not destined for a pot of boiling water. It has been kept at Turners Lobsters on Pine Point Road in Scarborough while awaiting transfer to its new home at the University of New England’s Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center in Biddeford. Turner and his crew caught a Calico lobster last winter and also donated it to UNE. Students named that lobster “Sprinkles.”
“It’s a one in 30 million orange and one-clawed lobster,” UNE spokesman Alan Bennett said in an email Sunday night. A crew from UNE plans to collect the lobster around 1 p.m. Monday, he said.
“We’ve long been home to these rare lobsters, which we study at length, having collaborated with the National Science Foundation, Maine Department of Marine Resources, and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, among others, to study the impact that a warming Gulf of Maine is having on lobster larvae and their success in growing to adulthood,” Bennett said.
In 2015, Bill Coppersmith, a Windham fisherman, caught a bright orange lobster while fishing in the deep-water canyons in the Gulf of Maine.
Another orange lobster attracted national media attention in July 2022 after employees from a Red Lobster restaurant in Hollywood, Florida, contacted Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach.
Ripley’s has placed the lobster, called Cheddar, on display at its Marine Science Research Center.
“Did you know that Cheddar’s vibrant shell is caused by a genetic mutation that causes it to produce more of a particular protein than other lobsters?” Ripley’s said in a statement on its website.
According to Ripley’s, orange lobsters are even more rare than blue lobsters. While the chance of finding a blue lobster is one in a million, the chance of finding an orange one is just one in 30 million.
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