Robinson Russell, a lobsterman, was astonished to discover what turned up in his trap on a chilly November day last year.
Russell informed The Dodo, “I reside on a little island named Grand Manan off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada. I’ve been fishing for more than 20 years, and this is the first fish of that color I’ve ever seen.
Lucky the lobster stood out from the throng with his brilliant, almost transparent shell shimmering with shades of pastel blue and purple.
Though at times he appears white, Lucky does not have albinism. His unique rainbow pigmentation has even earned him the nickname the “cotton candy” lobster.
Researchers with the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine estimate that a lobster like Lucky is one in 100 million, and Russell knew that he may never see a catch so special again.
The lobster’s typical brownish-green coloring is caused by the expression of different pigments in his shell, according to Cynthia Callahan, manager of the Huntsman Marine Science Center. Lucky’s unique coloring, on the other hand, is due to a genetic mutation that causes one or more of the red, blue or yellow pigments present in the shell to be displayed. Lobsters can have all kinds of color abnormalities — Russell has seen bright orange, blue and yellow lobsters all come out of the same bay.
But Lucky was the rarest of all.
Russell could not bring himself to let the strange animal end up on someone’s plate since he knew Lucky was special.
Russell said, “We dubbed it Lucky on the way in, and I uploaded a couple pictures of it on Instagram. It will now spend the remainder of its days at the Huntsman [Marine] Aquarium in St. Andrews since I truly didn’t want to sell it.
Even though we still wish for this lobster to return to the wild one day, Russell’s deed of generosity has given him a second shot at life.
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