7/25/2006: Two-toned lobster

[Undertoad]

Both xoB and axlrosen sent along this item which was also Boing Boing'd. You can surely get your bibs and miniature forks out for this two-toned lobster. From the full story:

[Maine lobsterman]Robinson donated his unusual catch to Maine's Mount Desert Oceanarium, where experts were able to shed some light on the find. Two-toned lobsters, they explain, are rare but not unheard of.

The shells of American, or Maine, lobsters usually sport a combination of yellow, red, and blue pigments. But the animals grow symmetrically, with each half of the body developing independently of the other.

In the case of Robinson's catch, half of the lobster's shell was lacking the blue pigment, giving it the appearance of having been cooked.

All this makes Robinson's fifty-fifty find one for the record books, the Oceanarium's staffers say. The aquarium has received only three two-toned lobsters in 35 years, they note, and the odds of finding one that's exactly half and half is about 1 in 50 million.

One of the earliest IotDs was a blue lobster so apparently this pigment confusion in lobsters just happens every once in a while.

It reminds one of the original series Trek episode | And begs the key question: are lobsters racist? We need to know!