Mighta been tasty

Twice in the month of June 2007, luck has sided with the haplessly captured along the southern coast of New England. Within the first few weeks of this month, two lobsters have emerged from commercial traps, not to enjoy the bright red, butter soaked resting place their brethren will see but instead they are headed for lives of luxury.

In the first week of June, lobsterman Jim Mataronas IV hit the jackpot of pulling a one in 50 million lobster from his traps off Newport RI. Due to a very rare genetic mutation, the lobster flailing it claws before him was a very clearly divided, two-tone critter.

"I pulled it out and thought someone was playing a joke on us. It looks half-cooked," Matamornas IV said.

The color of a lobster's shell is determined genetically at the first division's of the embryo and is normally a mix of yellow, blue and red. These mix to create the normally brownish-green color seen in most lobsters. The shells of lobsters grow symetrically, each side developing independently of the other and it is the rare lack of both yellow and blue in one half of this lobster's shell that has resulted in it's unique look. The Mataronas family usually keeps rarer lobsters on display for it's walk-in customers at the family-owned Sakonnet Lobster Co. but this time, they will try to find the very rare crustacean a new home at a local aqaurium.

Despite the long odds of bringing in such a rare lobster, Alan Robinson of Steuben ME had the same experience in July 2006 near Bar Harbor ME. He hadn't seen one in his 20 years of lobstering and told the Bangor Daily News,

"I thought someone was playing a trick on me. Once I saw what it was... it was worth seeing."

Robinson's lobster was also spared the role of main dinner course when he donated it to Maine's Mount Desert Oceanarium. His is one of only three that they have received in the past 35 years, attesting to the rarity of the two-toned lobster.

Mid June brought a stroke of luck as well, when lobstermen Steve Hatch and Robert Green pulled a 1.5 pound blue lobster from a trap set at the mouth of the Thames River in New London CT. Hatch said that he had heard of blue lobsters but this was the first he had seen. Later that afternoon the unique lobster was packed in a cooler and brought to the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, joining two others in residence there and facing a life in an elementary school classroom for children to learn about it.

A study by Professor Ronald Christensen at the University of Connecticut discovered that a genetic defect causes a blue lobster to produce too much protien and combined with a red carateniod molecule called astaxanthin forms a blue complex. This complex known as crustacyanin is what gives the genetically blue lobsters their color rather than environmental influences that can color some lobsters a pale version of blue that they will molt out when their environment changes.

These rare lobsters are now joining a group that have very high odds of ever being found. Blue lobsters are estimated to occur in one out of three million, yellow lobsters like the one residing at the New England Aquarium happen apparently one in 30 million. The chance of finding a split-colored lobster is about one in 50 million and the rarest, the albino lobster, is estimated to be one in 100 million.

I do have to wonder though, with two rare lobsters being caught within weeks of each other so close to one of the largest and richest casinos in the world............... who really did pull the arm for the lucky jackpot? The loberstermen who are now short one lobster to sell or the lobsters who are now enjoying the life of royalty, no butter added.