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Rare Lobsters get new lease on life
- Maris Balsom
- Sep 23
- 2 min read
This summer has brought a string of rare and colorful surprises to the waters and seafood deliveries of New England: several golden and blue lobsters have been discovered and given new homes at marine research centers and aquariums.
A rare "golden" lobster was discovered in May at a restaurant in Charlestown, Rhode Island back in May, and subsequently donated to the Biomes Marine Biology Center in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
The Biomes center received another golden lobster in July after workers at a grocery store in Rhode Island discovered one in their seafood delivery.
A Salem fisherman, Brad Myslinkski, caught a "1 in 2 million" blue lobster, and donated it to Northeastern University's Marine Science Center, after giving it the name Neptune.
Another blue lobster (who has not yet been named) was caught by the Michael & Erin fishing crew from Beverly, Massachusetts. The crew contacted the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to help arrange it's new home.
This lobster is now on display in the seawater lab's touch tank at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, in the School for Marine Science and Technology's (SMAST) East Campus in New Bedford.
What do these 4 lobsters have in common? What makes them so colorful?
All four lobsters share something remarkable: their colors are the result of rare genetic mutations that alter how pigments appear in their shells.
Normally, lobsters look dark greenish-brown because of the pigment astaxanthin (naturally red) and a protein called crustacyanin. When the protein binds to the pigment, it changes how light reflects off the shell, producing the familiar muddy coloration.
Blue lobsters have a mutation that causes them to produce far too much crustacyanin. This overwhelms the pigments, twisting the light they reflect into vivid blue tones.
Golden or yellow lobsters result from different imbalances in pigment expression, leaving behind dazzling yellow-gold hues.
Other rare variations include white (albino) lobsters, which lack pigment entirely, and “split” lobsters, where each half of the body is a different color due to separate genetic control on either side of the shell.
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