The translucent lobster in Maine lobsterman Alex Todd's trap was clearly a rare catch, but he tossed it back into the water, that's the law. Apparently someone else saw the strange crustacean, too, and let it go after notching its tail.
Todd said he has hauled in blue lobsters and even some lobsters that were half blue, or half orange, The Associated Press reported, but he said those don't compare on the scale of weirdness to the translucent crustacean he pulled up in a trap on Aug. 24.
The lobster was a ghostly, pale blue. It almost looked to be transparent.
Todd, from Chebeague Island, said he knew when he saw the translucent lobster in his trap alongside mottled green and brown lobsters that this was "definitely weird."
He said he tossed the lobster back because its tail had been notched, flagging the lobster as an egg-bearing female. Those lobsters are off-limits for conservation reasons.
The Maine Coast Fishermen's Association explained lobster coloring when it posted a pic of Todd's translucent lobster on Facebook:
A normal lobster gets its color by mixing yellow, blue, and red protein pigments. Through different genetic mutations you can get a blue, yellow, or red (uncooked) lobster. You can also get strange mixtures of those colors as well. ... This lobster probably has a genetic condition called Leucism which isn't a total loss of pigment (which would make it an albino) but instead a partial loss. This is why you can still see some hints of blue on the shell and color on the eyes.
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