![]() ![]() At least five yellow lobsters have been caught in the last ten years. As with the bright blue lobsters, the color is the result of a mutation in the proteins that bond with the shell pigments. Yellow Maine lobsters, although not really albinos, are truly rare roughly one in 30,000,000 wild lobsters are yellow. He plans to donate this special crustacean to a local aquarium. Just this August a Swan Island stern man hit the lottery when he trapped a rare, two-pound blue lobster. It isn’t clear whether all of these are descendants of the first mutant blue lobster, or if it is independently occurring. In the wild, approximately one one in 2 million lobsters are blue. This results in the bright blue pigment, rather than the typical mix of pigments that give the typical greenish-brown. This mutation causes an overproduction of a particular protein. This is the result of a genetic mutation that causes the blue color.īlue lobsters are, in fact, the result of a single mutation of one piece of the SNA of American lobsters. Science tells us that blue lobsters are not just uncommon, but are in fact mutants. White - the rarest of all - at 1-in-100 million. Split-colored varieties have been pegged at 1-in-50 million. While yellow and orange-and-black calico lobsters come in at 1-in-30 million. The odds of catching a blue lobster are 1-in-2 million. So, what’s really behind these multi-colored oddities? In today’s world, however, where everyone has a camera (and an Instagram account) the odd ones get much more attention. Scientists say that lobsters have probably always been cropping up in unusual colors here and there. The thicker, ‘hard-shelled’ lobsters tend to be darker in color than ‘soft shell’ lobsters that have recently shed their exoskeletons. Lobsters’ shells thicken not long after molting. The exact mix of these varies as much in individual lobsters as hair and skin color do in us humans. The shells of all lobsters have a mix of red, blue and yellow pigments, or chromatophores. The rays of the sun will lighten the lobster’s shell. Whereas the lighter colored lobsters are closer to shore. You’ll also see darker colored lobsters are found in the deeper waters. This makes it is unsurprising that these are the largest variety in the wild. Scientists believe darker colored lobsters are likely to have evolved through natural selection in order to avoid predators. Also known as the American lobster, or the ‘true’ lobster, which is the largest lobster variety by far. Where it gets really interesting, though, is the story of the Maine lobster. European lobsters are generally blue, with a yellow ventral surface (the belly). Of course, there have been some rare colors surface from the ocean depths and fall into a cooking post over the years. In general, these lobsters are a greenish-brown color when alive. This is also the only lobster that can be found red whilst alive. Specimens have been found in colors yellow, brown and olive. This lobster, just recently included in the Nephropidae family, if sound in the seas of South Africa. ![]() But what’s going on before they reach our stoves? Cape Lobster So, back to color! We all know that cooked lobsters are red no matter what their original color, they all turn the familiar ‘lobster red’ when immersed in boiling water. The term also includes several varieties of scampi, from oceans in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The most common lobsters that people think about are the American and European lobsters. The greens and browns which darken the shell in a live lobster are destroyed by the cooking process.īefore we get on to the specifics of coloring, we should probably establish: what exactly is a lobster? The term ‘lobster’ itself is actually a fairly wide term, encompassing the entire Nephropidae family. The red pigment is the most stable component of the coloring in a lobster. When they are cooked, all the pigments are masked except for astaxanthin, the red background pigment. Lobsters come in many different colors because of the pigment chromatophores in their shells. For a closer look at lobsters in popular culture check out our blog post about all the fun lobster movies. All thanks for the new wave of cooking channels and popular reality shows such as the Discovery Channel’s ‘Lobstermen’. However, lobster-lovers are beginning to learn more about Maine’s most famous export. At LobsterAnywhere a few customers have questioned whether the lobster delivered to their home was safe to cook because it wasn’t red. Some landlocked Americans believe that a wild, live lobster is red in color. In the face of all of the unquestionably crimson lobster imagery, it might then seem strange to ask: are lobsters really red? ![]()
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