If you’re a lobster, you know you’ve reached a great milestone when you find yourself being placed in the mailing list of rare lobster specimensand while it doesn’t turn out to be much rarer than a recent addition to the gradually growing Technicolor lobster family at the University of New England (UNE), Maine, USA, it still represents a tiny percentage.
The rare captured specimen is bright orange, a variant that is estimated to be present in one specimen for every 30 millionand now lives together with the rare glitter banana lobsterthe lobster which is kept at the university.
Rare lobster was captured at Casco Bay by the captain Gregg Turner, a fisherman from Scarborough, and donated to UNE, which is known as a home for special shellfish that may further our understanding. It presents an especially interesting opportunity because a claw is missing, possibly from a fight with a fish or other lobster.
Being a claw-wielding wonder gives students a chance to learn about limb regrowth, since lobsters can regenerate several limbsIt would also be useful for understanding how lobsters adapt to wounds.
“We plan to document this lobster’s claw regrowth in real time, something we’ve done only once before with Banana, our female yellow lobster.”
he stated in a statement Lindsay Forrettelaboratory coordinator and head of chemical hygiene at the UNE School of Marine and Environmental Programs, who later added:
“Rare lobsters, like this bright orange one caught by Turner’s Lobsters, are excellent ambassadors for education because they arouse so much curiosity. Sharing these amazing animals with our students and visitors is a special opportunity that wouldn’t be possible without Maine’s lobster community along the coast.”
What else do we know about this rare lobster specimen?
Other rare lobster specimens are visible in yellow, blue and white, and in the case of blue lobstersthe odds of catching one are one in 2 millionand both blue and yellow lobster are the result of a genetic mutation in proteins that bind to shell pigments.
A rare golden-colored lobster specimen like this latest addition, and the “banana lobster,” are brought to the rare lobster stake by only one in 100 million “crystal lobsters” that have a pigment condition called leucism. Interestingly, they’re the only extravagant variety of lobster that doesn’t turn red when cooked, which in typical specimens is the result of shell proteins uncoiling in the heat and releasing the pigment molecule astaxanthin.
Another worthy entry in the Top Trumps of Weird Lobsters is a specimen found in Nova Scotia, Canada that has sprouted an extra claw on its claw.
Repetition of body parts is not uncommon in arthropods, which are characterized by their body patterns of repeating segmented parts. Each segment has a set of regulatory genes that determine which appendages grow on that part, so when a surprise claw pops up in the wrong place it’s the result of regulatory gene signaling failure.
UNE’s latest Golden Wonder has yet to be named, but if Banana’s nomenclature is anything to go by, we can expect great things.
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