Every year, seafood suppliers receive a few strange specimens in their shipments. Last week, the Roche Bros. supermarket in Westborough, Massachusetts accepted a batch of lobsters from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia with a “one in 10 million” orange-colored animal, which makes it almost appear to be pre-cooked. The lobster is about 7-9 years old, which according to biologists is amazing, considering how visible this makes it to predators.
Most lobsters are dark bluish green to greenish brown. Ones that are blue, calico, yellow, or even albino result from a combination of genetics and diet, according to Anita Kim, a lobster biologist at the New England Aquarium. The bright red color when it is boiled results from the breakdown of proteins in the shell. The Aquarium receives a few weirdly-pigmented examples each summer, mostly sent in by seafood retailers.
The orange animal will be donated to the New England Aquarium, and possibly shipped on to partner facility in Japan. It is not known how much these unusual examples would sell for or if there is even a market for orange lobsters.
Source: Westborough Patch