Calico lobster: How did it get its spots?
| HAMPTON, N.H.
A fisherman has caught a rare lobster that's bright orange with dark blue spots.
Josiah Beringer found the calico lobster in a trap on July 23 in the mouth of New Hampshire's Hampton Harbor. He donated the 1.5-pound, 5-year-old male lobster to the Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium in Hampton.
Beringer tells the Portsmouth Herald (聽) the lobster was found in an area known as Washerwoman Rock, an area between two rocks that gets its name from its "really rough" and "washing machine"-like waters.
The aquarium's Ellen Goethel says calico lobsters are the second rarest in the world, after albino lobsters. She says the spots are the result of a genetic pigmentation mutation occurring in 1 in every 30 million to 50 million lobsters.
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Information from: Portsmouth Herald,聽
