Last week, a rarely occurring lobster--one with a color combination only seen in about 1 in 50 million lobsters--was caught by a fishermen off the Beverly coast of Massachusetts. It was a female weighing in at one-pound whose coloring was split down the midline of her body--on the right she was colored orange, and on the left she was colored a dark brownish. Just in time for Halloween!
Most lobster shells are colored red, yellow, or blue. Lobsters eat shrimp, algae, and other sea creatures that contain cartenoid pigment, which colors the lobsters’ skin red (If they don’t eat the pigment, they remain white). When the pigment is transferred to a lobster’s shell, proteins bind to it, turning it blue. As more and more pigment-protein complexes start to stack up in the shell, they bend and turn a yellow color. The most typical American lobster's shell is a medley of these pigments, resulting in a dark bluish green to greenish brown, with their body and claws being more red, and their legs being more green, as such:
Image source: https://theterramarproject.org/admin/uploads/image/width/639/height/453/file/species:93589_orig.jpeg
Another form of blue is caused by a genetic mutation seen in about 1 in every 2 million lobsters--this is a "true blue" because its coloring is intrinsic, and not environmentally impacted or food-dependent. These lobsters produce an excessive amount of a protein that combines with a red carotenoid molecule known as astaxanthin to form a blue complex known as crustacyanin, giving the lobster its blue color.
Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_lobster_02.jpg
Back to split lobsters--researchers suppose that the fact that these lobsters have split coloring because of a developmental malfunction resulting in a half-male, half-female specimen. Bob Bayer, the animal and veterinary sciences director at the Lobster Institute through the University of Maine, writes in an email that he’s “seen quite a few of these mixed-colored lobsters (see "A Lobster Tale" here for more info). They are all hermaphrodites.” Further, from a Darwinian standpoint, it's likely that these types of lobsters--though hailed as exotic and beautiful in the human world--are less able to blend into their surroundings, and selected against in nature.
So, as much as we'd like to think that those bright red lobsters we see on our dinner plates are found like that in nature, I think we'll have to settle for the fact that we only get these in the kitchen. No matter the intrinsic properties of the lobster, it will still turn bright red once you cook it because heat breaks the proteins and frees the red carotenoid pigment.
...But wait! You can actually find bright red lobsters in nature. They are just rare, occurring about once in 10 million.
Now, since I don't feel like writing more paragraphs, I'll just share with you three other kinds of rare lobsters in list form. There's:
The yellow lobster, occurring about once in every 30 million lobsters
Image source: http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.205352!/img/httpImage/image.jpg
The "calico" lobster--with a mottled black and orange appearance--also occurring once in every 30 million lobsters
Image source: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.slashfood.com/media/2005/08/Calico%20Lobster.jpg
And, the most rare, the albino lobster, lacking all pigmentation--occurring once in every 100 million lobsters.
Image source: http://www.albinolobster.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/20080211-la-langosta-blanca-the-white-lobster.jpg
Woo! An informative blog post, for once. Hooray! But it's not exactly about terrestrial arthropods... sorry everyone.
Now come to my beetle bris/funeral at 7pm tonight (Dolph died yesterday--may he rest in peace).
-Chelsea
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